Playlist: Armored

What is is about heist movies that I like so much? Judging by this, I have no idea. That's not really fair, though, because this isn't really a heist movie. At least not in the traditional sense. Sure, there's a heist. But it's just to set up a couple of armored truck chase scenes (yes, two).

Okay, that lead question was just a set-up for the cheap shot in the second sentence. I know very well what the appeal of heist films is and I know it's twofold. First, it's the enticement of being part of an against-the-odds scheme, the pull of the underdog. It never matters that we are rooting for criminals because it's not about the crime itself but about pulling it off. We don't care if they get the money, but how they get it. Armored avoids any of this psychological foreplay by revealing the entire plan in a few lines and then by reveling in its simplicity. What we're left with it just some losers trying to steal money. Where's the fun in that? And if we're not cheering for them, what's left for us to do? Wait, they have an answer: manufacture a good guy. That would be Columbus Short as Denzel Washington as a Gulf War vet who only agreed to the plan in the first place because he was going to lose his house to the bank and his brother, who he is raising since both parents died, to foster care. See, he agreed to steal the $42 million dollars, but then had a change of heart. Okay? Yeah, he chickened out. Which actually got me cheering for the other guys (a good cast including Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, and the long lost Skeet Ulrich) because, really, what's this guy's problem?

The second part of the equation is the getaway. It's one thing to break into a bank or a museum, it's another thing entirely to break back out. It's all part of the plan, of course, the coup de grace for every heist mastermind. Whether they make it or not depends on the tone of the film, but the implications of that question need to be played out. There's no getaway here because Private Integrity just locks himself in one of the armored trucks with the money and plays nah-nah-nah-nah-poo-poo for most of the rest of the movie. This all could have been fun, but director Nimrod Antal decided to go another way. Maybe he was going for a deconstruction of the heist film by removing all the cliched interesting parts. He is Hungarian.

Ok, SPOILER ALERT. No surprise, but the ending is ridiculous. After our "hero" kills everyone (keep in mind that he turned on his friends because they killed a homeless guy who witnessed them unloading the cash--maybe Antal was examining the vagaries of 21st century morality) and destroys all the money, not only isn't he charged with anything, but may even get a reward (to pay off the house, yay!). The fact that he willingly agreed to steal the money seems to never cross anyone's mind. Or that all the death and destruction in his wake was a result of his choices. Yes, we get an anti-hero without any of the coolness or the, you know, heroism. And that's way too many words about this movie.