Sylvester Stallone has rarely played a villain on screen, and judging by the deadpan of his role in “Armor,” it seems unlikely that he would have wanted to do so. This lack of enthusiasm will resonate with most viewers watching this uninspiring action show, in which Jason Patric’s driver and co-worker Josh Wiggins are attacked by armed robbers while transporting bank money – and some, unknown to them, are even more contraband. Precious.
Set primarily on a country bridge where good guys and bad guys have an extended showdown, Mississippi is competently produced. But neither its staging nor its performances transcend the confines of Adrian Specert and Corey Todd Hughes’ script, leaving the mediocre material unassailable by any special excitement, style, or character detail. Lionsgate releases the film simultaneously in US theaters, digital platforms and on demand on November 22.
When ex-cop James Brodie (Patrick) isn’t behind the wheel of an armored vehicle, he’s running AA meetings. He has been ostensibly sober for six years since hitting bottom after his wife died in an accident for which he blames himself. But in reality, he’s still imbibing cunning, a fact that seems to have eluded the discovery of his son Casey (Wiggins), who now has a wife and a child on the way. You’d think Junior would notice, since they work together most days moving cash between banks. But “The Shield” has several fundamentally implausible things.
The main reason is that somehow no one notices, or calls the police, when their tightly scheduled route is hijacked by Rock (Stallone) and his small team of conspirators. After being chased and rammed, the truck finally stopped in the middle of a rural bridge with plenty of structures in sight — so it doesn’t make sense that this tire-squealing scuffle, not to mention the ensuing gunfire and explosions, wouldn’t immediately attract officers. From the law. Also, couldn’t an armored vehicle carrying a lot of money be monitored via GPS tracking? What’s going on here isn’t interesting enough to make you stop asking those annoying questions.
However, father and son find themselves confronted by six heavily armed men dressed in black, including Dash Mihawk, Joshua David Waites, and Blake Shields, as well as Stallone. They intend to flee with loot that turns out to include the riches of a drug cartel, and our heroes have no idea they’re transporting. When resistance is met, tactics get dirtier on both sides, with the Brody family retreating into the armored truck after Casey is wounded. There, they endure gassing and sweating, but they also find ways to sift through opposition forces.
“Hiring a cop is pretty hard,” one of the villains eventually says with grudging admiration…in what is unfortunately a good example of the overall dialogue here. About halfway through the film, we get a flashback to the tragedy that derailed James’s life, with Irene Ownby as his late wife. This also feels quite perfunctory as the script’s only notable attempt at character backstory and depth.
You can’t blame the actors here for failing to play too many un-written roles. No one is completely bad, but no one is trying hard either. In Stallone’s case, an attempt at all doesn’t seem to be on the agenda – this appearance is the equivalent of some of Bruce Willis’ later appearances, where the big name star can’t hide that he just showed up or doesn’t want to. To get the salary. His criminal mastermind was tempered by the belated claim that “he’s not a murderer…that’s not who I am.” But since he’s the head of this group, this statement makes it confusing that even now his subordinates seem so eager to get rid of our heroes. For that matter, if the lives of the Brody family are to be saved, why wouldn’t the villains do anything to hide their faces so that they would be unrecognizable?
Despite the vagueness of this logic, “Armor” could have been enjoyable if it had more humor, or if the mediocre action scenes were executed with some skill. Instead, we’re all keenly aware that we’re stuck on a bridge with a lot of argumentative braggarts, unsure why no other cars are passing by to police the dead end… not to mention why the police aren’t rushing to what should be a rare, very loud crime spree in This is a rural area. What should ideally play out as a real-time pressure cooker thriller comes off a lot less tense than it should, never quite getting boring but coming dangerously close.
The best elements of the professional production set are Cale Finot’s widescreen cinematography and the bayou locations – neither of which are exploited to their full potential, but attractive nonetheless. You also get points for at least trying to add some regional vibe with the soundtrack, which is filled with cuts from various artists in a meandering Southern rock mode.