Armored (2009)

A Masterpiece!

In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I try and not bash movies/shows just for having a lame plot, except when they are being extremely hyped - and unjustly so, but I feel I have to add my 5 (?) Cent whenever a show/movie is offensive or immoral, and this one is the latter. For no understandable reason Hackett is portrayed as the hero and being rewarded in the end, when all he does is getting about 6-7 people killed (or 5-6 killed and one nearly killed and probably handicapped for life) while it could have been only one dead (bad enough, but better than several more). No money and no wrongly understood sudden change of moral is worth these losses. First, he agreed to go along with it - very naively believing that no one will get hurt - which is always a possible outcome in things like these, and when it goes south, he is the one who makes it go to hell even more. It would still have been disloyal and somewhat questionable had he gone through with the theft and afterwards ratted out his fellow workers to the police. But endangering many people and getting Dobbs and Palmer and whoever dies in his bomb trap and Cochrone killed and Eckehart severely injured - that's the worst move he could do. Sure, he gets Eckehart into hospital, but I doubt he will fully recover from this severe injury he would not have gotten at all if it wasn't for Hackett - he must have known that this is the likely outcome, what was he thinking? One man coming and they all put down their weapons? Very egoistical! If this is how Hollywood perceives heroes, we are all doomed. If you writers cannot come up with better actions/characters/plots, then better not write anything at all. That's poisonous. Other than that the movie isn't good anyway, and that you cannot side with Hackett plus the interesting characters being killed off early, makes it even worse. A waste of great actors.

Some security workers form a plan to steal millions from the money they're transporting. One guy is not so into the plan, but with a bit of coaxing and persuasion, along with mitigating personal circumstances, he eventually agrees to it. Now I don't think most people would be so haughty and judgemental as to take that to signify a black mark against these individuals. They worked hard, had hard lives, and really wanted a break and to live their dream lives. Who says that people always need to bend the knee and respect government no matter how unfairly they are treated by them? Maybe they would argue that they are owed the money, or it is their money, and why should their claim be any less valid or correct than one that the controlling body says? I thought we had a more educated, sophisticated population than that. I'm not saying stealing this money is "okay", but just that there are some complex issues here, it's not all just black and white. The idea we're meant to just automatically consider taking it to be "wrong" is just ridiculous. I thought we had progressed from the "police = good, robber = bad" mentality, it's not always so simple. The government is not a god to be worshipped and they don't define morality. In particular if you make a deal with someone and agree to do something, then you really should carry through with it. Otherwise you are a liar and a two-faced snitch. Okay, if he turned in all his friends and ruined their lives... that would be bad enough. But after he had sworn allegiance to them? This guy who messed everything up, betrayed his comrades, and he's supposed to be the hero? He would have been better off just taking the damn money, everyone would have been happy, probably nobody would have ended up dead and there would be no movie. The corperations have screwed so many innocent people over over the years that they won't even notice the money is gone. Seemingly to guard against feeling for the bad guys they had the robbers who were going ahead with the plan do some indefensible things. But you could see that this was really contrived, it didn't match the rest of the movie or their characters. It's insulting to robbers everywhere and all anti-government protesters, anarchists everywhere to paint them in such a picture. Just because they don't believe in the current corrupt system does not make them bad people. The guys seemed like normal, cool, fun guys.The movie doesn't have anything else other than the above. There are no good action scenes, almost everything takes place in a bare warehouse. There were a couple of bizarre and totally unrealistic situations, such as the good guys gluing money to the window so that the guys outside wouldn't see what they were doing. On the whole a rubbish movie. Jean Reno looks embarrassed to be in there as well he should.

Movie was suspenseful but ending wasn't. I watch the movie and waited for the heist to happen and it didn't. Acting was OK. In my opinion Ty should have been killed. All that trouble of doing a heist and this guy ruins it. Movie reminded me on an inside job gone wrong! I gave it a 0 out of 10 if I could. I also did not like how Ty decides to go with it and them freaks out. He should have not showed up at the locker. He runied the movie. Why didn't the guy on the roof just shoot him? Why? Why? I was waiting for that! Everyone ends up dying! Why? What a dumb move! What a waste! I'm shaking my head. Do not watch this movie. The action is there but the plot is not. It could have been better with the heist actually went though.

(Credit IMDb) The war veteran, Ty Hackett, is hired to work as security guard by the Eagle Shield Security where his old friend Mike Cochroone works. Ty is having financial difficulties after the death of his father, and is raising his brother Jimmy alone. He teams up with Mike's brother-in-law, Baines, and their coworkers Quinn, Palmer and Dobbs. One night, Mike invites Ty to join in the robbery of two armored trucks transporting forty-two million dollars. The reluctant Ty accepts after Mike promises that nobody would be hurt in the heist.Armored is basically a modern b-movie, just with a more expensive budget, and experienced, quality actors. It doesn't really pretend to be anything more, anything less, and that works for it, more often then not, than it does against it. I'm not the biggest fan of heist movies, the subject of robbing really doesn't intrigue me like most others do, but this is better then most. I liked the conflict between Matt Dillon, and Columbus Short's characters, it provided an interesting point of view for things, and added good things to the storyline too. Complaints? The whole "You witnessed an accidental murderer, so will have to kill him to evade future evidence, and keep an eye on you, so you don't snitch "thing in the middle is very clichéd, and not very original, I also wished they had gone further with Short and his younger brother Jimmy (Andre Kinney) Because that was a good storyline too. Decent amount of action for what it is, and it passed the time amiably enough.Performances. Matt Dillon is better then this film, but he gives his all in this movie, and it shows. He can play intense with the best of them, and I loved it when he went all maniacal. Columbus Short is actually pretty solid as the lead. I didn't think I'd buy him as much as I did, but he pulled it off. He has a lot of potential in his career. Laurence Fishburne slums it here, and doesn't have that big of a role as you may think. Fred Ward is wasted in his role. Milo Ventimiglia plays a cop briefly, then a shot-wound victim, not much of a part to play. He did as best as he could. Skeet Ulrich is OK and nothing more.Bottom line. Armored was much better then I expected, considering I dislike heist movies. It's a well-polished B-movie, and a fairly entertaining one at that. It's not something I'll ever see again, or ever rush out to see. But it was a decent time-waster, and it's perfect afternoon fodder when you have no activities to do. Worth a look 6/10