Review: Armored
Plot: An inside job on an armored car goes very wrong. Rated PG-13 (violence, language).
Cast: Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Columbus Short
Length: 1:25
Inside job, outside chance in 'Armored'
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Trailer: Armored
Duncan Ashcroft, a manager at Eagle Shield Armored Transport, is a minor character in the heist flick "Armored," but he deserves a major share of the blame. After all, Ashcroft (Fred Ward) apparently hired the shifty-eyed criminal guards played by Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, Skeet Ulrich and Amaury Nolasco in the first place.
You don't have to be an FBI profiler to spot these scruffy-faced scuzzballs, yet here they are transporting millions of dollars from bank vaults. Director Nimród Antal ("Vacancy") and fledgling writer James V. Simpson might have used more imagination to bring their thin but serviceable movie to life; instead they phoned central casting. The film's locker-room dialogue is also standard-issue.
The film has at least enough momentum to last its modest 85 minutes. Columbus Short plays Ty Hackett, a former soldier back from Baghdad (so topical!) whose house is nearly in foreclosure (ditto). His old man was an armored guard; now so is Ty, thanks to his pal Mike Cochrane (Dillon). There is talk of multigenerational pride, all of it stolen from various police dramas.
As you might have guessed, Cochrane and his sweaty crew - including the trigger-happy Baines (Fishburne) - pull Ty into an inside job. It works exactly as planned, and everyone goes home rich.
Kidding! It's a fiasco. When the blood starts spilling, Ty belatedly finds his conscience and barricades himself inside a smashed truck. For much of the film, his (former) friends scramble like angry squirrels to reach him. The twists and turns are rudimentary, but they'll work if you don't think too hard.
Make that not at all: Didn't Ashcroft say these trucks have GPS? What happened to that?
PLOT An inside job on an armored car goes very wrong.
RATING PG-13 (violence, language)
CAST Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Columbus Short
LENGTH 1:25
PLAYING AT Area theaters
BOTTOM LINE A passable action flick with enough cat-and-mousing to last through a medium popcorn.
