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Armor Review
Image Credit: Lionsgate
Loading...Armor Review
Jason Patric– James Broody
Sylvester Stallone– Rook
Josh Wiggins– Casey Broody
Dash Mihok– Smoke
Josh Whites– Echo
Joel Cohen– Bank Manager
Jeff Chase– Viper
(check out the rest of the cast here)
Directed by Justin Routt
Screenplay by Cory Todd Hughes and Adrian Speckert
Distributed by Lionsgate and Grindstone Entertainment Group
Rated R for violence and language
Runtime– 88 minutes
Armor will be available on all major Video On Demand and Digital platforms and in select theaters starting November 22nd, 2024
Armor, directed by Justin Routt and available on all major Video On Demand and digital platforms and in select theaters starting November 22nd, 2024, is a decent enough low-budget, indie action thriller. It isn’t anything particularly special, it isn’t going to change anyone’s life, and the story told is beyond absurd. It is mildly entertaining, featuring interesting performances from Jason Patric and Dash Mihok. Sylvester Stallone is also in the movie, presumably taking the role Bruce Willis likely would have taken had he not retired from acting (and I make that observation because Stallone, just like Willis in several low-budget indie action movies he made, is billed second in the opening and closing credits).
Armor stars Jason Patric as James Broody, an alcoholic former sheriff turned armored car driver that works with his son Casey (Josh Wiggins). James tries to do his job as best he can while also keeping his alcoholism a secret (James goes to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings while still drinking plenty of booze every single day. James also keeps a bottle of vodka in a fake orange juice carton container in his refrigerator) and his relationship with Casey positive. Casey is set to become a father for the first time, and James wants his son to be happy and ready to be a father. Trying to keep all of this stuff in his life together is incredibly difficult for James, but from the outside it looks like he’s managing things well.
One day, after picking up several boxes from a credit union, one of which wasn’t in the paperwork for that day, James and Casey are attacked on the road by a van. After a brief car chase, James drives the armored car onto a somewhat secluded bridge, and another van shows up to block James from driving across the bridge. The two vans are full of badass professional thieves, led by the old pro Rook (Stallone). Rook’s men immediately start shooting at the armored car, then launch a grenade at the armored car and knock it on its side. During all of this, both James and Casey try to call for help, with James realizing that both the armored car’s radio and their cell phones are being jammed. What the heck are they going to do? How are James and Casey going to get out of this?
So then some stuff happens, James and Casey start shooting at Rook’s men, killing several of them, James and Casey lock themselves in the back of the armored car, and Rook’s remaining men try to come up with a new plan. A new plan? What was the original plan in the first place? And what the heck does Rook want that James and Casey have in the back of the armored car? They don’t have much in the way of money, certainly not the sort of amount that a professional team of thieves would risk life and limb to try to steal. It’s at this point that James figures out that Rook’s team must be after whatever the heck is in that box that wasn’t listed on the credit union’s paperwork. So what’s in that box?
The rest of the movie is a big back and forth between Rook and his team trying to get inside of the armored car, and James and Casey trying to survive. Casey eventually gets shot and James has to try to keep Casey from bleeding to death. James and Casey have a brief discussion about what happened years and years ago, when James was still a cop (there’s a flashback that helps explain why James isn’t a cop anymore). And while all of that is going on, Rook’s team starts to unravel, with Smoke (Dash Mihok) becoming more and more unhinged the longer the job takes (Smoke complains over and over again that the job was supposed to be quick and simple, and yet several members of his team are dead and they’ve been trying to get inside of the armored car for hours).
Armor moves along at a fairly okay pace. It’s odd how there doesn’t seem to be much of a sense of urgency on Rook’s team, especially from Rook, in terms of getting into the back of the armored car. You sort of understand how Rook wants to be cautious at the beginning of his big plan going wrong, but after multiple new setbacks after the first one, you’d think Rook would ramp up the pressure on James and Casey to get them to surrender. There’s a reason for Rook’s continued caution throughout this job, and it makes a kind of sense, but it still comes off as odd. I mean, if you’re going to go through all of the trouble to attack an armored car with two vans on a state highway, potentially in full view of God knows how many other motorists and whatnot, why are you going to suddenly become cautious about getting inside the back of the armored car, especially when James and Casey fight back way more than you thought they would? And why the heck is Smoke the only member of Rook’s team annoyed with how nothing seems to be working?
The action that we get in Armor is okay. The gun battles are mildly exciting, and the general violence that we get is brutal enough. There is a pretty good CGI “man-on-fire” bit. The last quarter of the movie, when things finally do ramp up for everyone, the movie does become more thrilling. How James and Casey get out of the back of the armored car is the most suspenseful thing in the movie (I will admit to that sequence being nerve wracking).
The movie’s soundtrack is a bit of a letdown. The bluesy rock songs that appear throughout the movie are easy to listen to, but they become more annoying as the movie goes on. I do think the movie would have been better served with something akin to a synth score, or at least a more “traditional” action movie score.
Jason Patric does a good job as James Broody. At first, James seems like an everyman that’s just holding on to his life by a thread. He’s somehow doing what he needs to do to make it through each day (he gets up, he goes to work, he does his daily AA meeting, he tries to maintain a good relationship with his son) while also doing everything to undermine all of that (he’s still drinking alcohol all day, keeping it hidden from everyone). It seems like it’s only a matter of time before his entire life will fall apart. And when you find out that James used to be a cop and then what happened to him that ended him being a cop, it’s a wonder that he’s even functional at all on any level. James does spring into action and uses his experience to take on Rook and his team of thieves while also protecting Casey, and you root for him to get through it all without completely falling apart. Because it sure as heck seems like it will happen at some point. Damaged people do have their breaking points. Patric handles all of this with skill and a general likeability, and it’s greatly appreciated. You don’t necessarily expect him to be as resourceful as he turns out to be. I also want to point out that, yes, there are moments where you’ll swear to God that Patric is playing some version of Johnny Galecki’s Leonard Hofstadter from The Big Bang Theory (2007). Patric looks just like him.
Sylvester Stallone does a serviceable job as Rook, the leader of the team of professional thieves. There are times where it seems like it would make sense for a guy like Rook to be cautious and measured, but then why doesn’t he get more pissed off when things start going wrong? I mean, sure, getting super upset and flying off the handle isn’t going to solve anything, but at the same time you’d think he’d show some sort of emotion when bad things keep happening. Where the heck is the one moment where he just yells the F word and then gets back to work? Rook is always trying to get back to work. I won’t tell you how the movie ends and what happens to Stallone’s Rook, but it makes sense when you realize that Stallone very, very rarely ever plays an actual bad guy. Does it make sense for the story? Eh. It makes sense for Stallone, though.
Josh Wiggins does a decent job as Casey, James’ son and partner at the armored car company. They have a nice back and forth when driving around (there’s a whole running gag about James asking Casey what his pregnant wife packed him for lunch that day), and you totally buy them as a father and son trying to work out some big issue between them, an issue that they don’t directly talk about but talk about in a sort of a code. The scene that leads to the big flashback scene is Wiggins’ best scene in the movie. I would like to know what the heck happened to the pen light Casey drops in the back of the armored car towards the beginning of the movie. Why the heck didn’t it become a part of the movie later on?
Dash Mihok is fantastic as the unhinged Rook team member Smoke. Smoke tries to keep things together at the start of everything falling apart, but he loses his cool more and more as things continue to go badly. Mihok’s scenes with Stallone are fun (Smoke really wants to tell Rook off, but he tries to maintain respect since Rook is the team leader. That sentiment doesn’t last long). Mihok also has a few nice scenes with fellow thief Josh Whites, who plays Echo. You get the sense that Smoke and Echo probably didn’t get along all that much before everything went south with this armored car job, but they were professional enough to work together. The more bad things happen, though, all bets are going to be off at some point.
Armor isn’t going to be for everyone. If you have an aversion to the low-budget action genre, especially ones that resemble something Bruce Willis would have participated in if he was still acting, Armor isn’t going to be for you at all. But if you do like that sort of Willis led low-budget action flick, or if you’re at least willing to give that sort of movie a chance, you might like Armor. It isn’t great, but it isn’t offensive, either. There are some weird moments in it, too, so at least it has that going for it. You will definitely dig Jason Patric’s performance. And you’ll obviously have to see it if you’re one of those Sylvester Stallone completists (you know who you are).
I liked Armor just enough to mildly recommend it. It isn’t anything special, but it is watchable. So, yeah, see Armor if you don’t have anything else going on in your life. Armor will be available on all major Video On Demand and digital platforms and in select theaters starting November 22nd, 2024.
So what do we have here?
Dead bodies: At least 6.
Explosions: A few.
Nudity?: None.
Doobage: Armored car going down the road. A crew of professional thieves getting ready to go to work. A big wooden box full of bullets. Slow motion shooting practice. A bridge. People sweating because it’s so goddamn hot. Box securing. A thermometer that may not work. Multiple heavy boxes. A dropped pen light. A suspicious van. After work showers. A nice family dinner. Multiple AA meetings. Credit union hooey. Steering wheel squeezing. Another suspicious van. Ramming. A car chase. Radio and phone jamming. Barrier breaking. A bridge trap. Assault rifle attack. Bullet to the leg. Multiple head shots. Attempted wounded leg fixing. Pressure. Grenade attack. A special box. Shit talking. Vodka hooey. A flashback. Police car hooey. A speeder. Gun in the glove box. A massive vehicular accident. A giant drill. Multiple arguments. Improvised explosive. CGI “man-on-fire” scene. Taser attack. Betrayal. Full on van attack. Another grenade attack. Impromptu water moment. A narrow escape. A brief hand-to-hand brawl. An odd ending.
Kim Richards? Almost.
Gratuitous: “Blues” music on the soundtrack. Sylvester Stallone. Jason Patric needing Tums and prescription pills to get up in the morning. A carton of orange juice that has a bottle of booze hidden inside of it. A bowl of eggs in the refrigerator. Multiple AA meetings. Jason Patric lying to himself. An old white guy that really looks like LQ Jones. Two guys talking about pregnancy. Jason Patric reading numbers off of a clipboard. Talk of protocol. Men in a locker room. A drone shot of the city. A douchebag bank manager. Multiple grenade attacks. Sylvester Stallone talking about “Murphy’s Law.” Jason Patric talking shit. Dash Mihok becoming unhinged. Using vodka to clean a wound. Molotov cocktail making. An odd ending.
Best lines: “I’ll tell you what. Maybe, if you keep smarting off, the horn won’t be the only thing screaming.” “What’s on Sarah’s menu today?” “It’s a fucking hot box in here.” “Look, I don’t know what’s in there, but if we break it, we buy it. Do you understand me?” “Nothing more stress free than driving a truck ten miles through bum fuck nowhere. Beautiful, beautiful bum fuck nowhere.” “Fucking truck is falling apart. It’s got a little character to it.” “Careful with the C-4.” “Mother! Fucker!” “Blow the fucking doors off!” “Dad, are we going to die? I don’t know.” “Anybody home?” “You can call me Rook. More like pawn.” “That rent-a-cop is one tough son-of-a-bitch to take that much gas.” “Hey, Rook! That all you got?” “Get the drill! Get the drill!” “Fucking shit show.” “You know, they say chicks dig scars, but this is fucking ridiculous.” “Dad, you drinking again? Uh, I, uh, never really stopped.” “Dad? Really?” “You know, you really are the mother fucker of all jinxes.” “Ask yourself what you want more, the money or a bullet in your head.” “The plan was, and is, they don’t die.” “I’m not a killer. It’s not in my nature.”
