Movie Preview: Armored

So what happens when you have several old actors, a couple that never made it big time, and a few newbies thrown in for the hell of it? Well you could make a film that has been done a dozen times before.

Armored is a film we all have seen before. It's a heist film. Which means it's the same as Heat, or the Sting, or even a major sub-plot for The Shield. The question is really, is this a well done version of the same old thing?



As can be seen, the film is looking to convince with a couple of interesting tidbits. There is the influence of Laurence Fishburne, and Jean Reno. There is a bit of the old in Matt Dillon resurfacing in a major film after decades of straight to DVD films. Plus there is Skeet Ulrich, the go to guy for looking like you have Johnny Depp in a film.

The concept is simple and obvious. An inside job, planned to the very detail. Except a detail comes up that was never considered. And there is where the film will be made or broken.

This is not a deep film with a massive twist from start to finish like Inside Man. This is not a bad versus even worse like on The Shield. It isn't a catchy slick con like Ocean's Eleven. It isn't even cops and robbers like Heat. It's just how bad people can get like Treasure of the Sierra Madre. (hope you saw all those films to get what I mean)

The questions that hit me are far from the movie trailer itself. Is this a film that Lawrence Fishburne had enough time to really commit to since his work on CSI? Is this a good film that just doesn't fit the summer blockbuster season, or is it a fill-in until Oscar season yet better than the ususal January throw-aways? Will Matt Dillon finally make the comeback he has been hoping for or is this another cable standard?

None of the questions I pose are the ususal ones asked about a film by the general public. Still they all reflect the quality of the film. In all likelyhood I expect this film to do 2 things:

Justify the desire to have a nice thriller/action film before the feel good and Oscar (boring) contenders come out

Keep the audience busy for 1 1/2 hours of their life

Now I will add to this. I felt the same way prior to seeing Inside Man. I came away from that film far more rewarded than I went into it. Low expectations can be a good thing when you get a quality piece of film. But low expectations are more the norm from the copycat and derivative nature of Hollywood films these days.

Still I think that this might live up to more than what it looks like. There are far too many good actors for me to think this is just a throwaway. The trailer is not filled with just random action impling the lack of a plot. It almost asks you to see it to be sure exactly how good it might be.

Would I see this instead of Ninja Assassin? No. But I would see both films. The only thing is that I am pretty sure what I will get from Ninja Assassin. I'm not as sure this will be worth the $20 a ticket. Though it at least seems like it might be, which is better than most films out around this time of year.

Frenchman disses 24 and American movies

Well here is a strange thought. A French man is complaining about America. Your shock must be intense.

To be more exact the complaint against America is about the movie studio, 20th Century Fox I believe, which helped to fund and distribute the movie Babylon A.D. The French man is Mathieu Kassovitz. If you are wondering who he is, you are from anywhere but France. He is a Frenchman that is an accomplished actor; in America that means he was in films no one except a handful of film critics have ever seen. And they were paid to watch them.

Mathieu Kassovitz is the director of the new Vin Diesel film, Babylon A.D. and his complaint is that the film sucks. He stated this in an interview as the film is released.

But how bad could it be? Remember this is a director that is French. The land that brought Jean Reno and The Professional. With a movie based on a top French novel. With 2 top A-list actors, 1 of which is a huge international star - Michelle Yeoh. All my hopes of this being a good film were quickly dashed when I heard this though.

“It's pure violence and stupidity," he admits. "The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters... instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24.”

Now pure violence is exactly what I was hoping for. If I want to help kids get educated then I would send them to school. If I want to study metaphysics I go to a philosophy course in college. And 24 is far more popular and widely viewed, than every French television program – none of which I have never heard of.

So in a single statement I was told that this director had hoped to make a long (the film was mercifully cut down to 93 minutes by the movie studio) slow paced wordy French version (in English) of say Wuthering Heights. And for some reason he thought that this would be popular, or even seen, by U.S. audiences.

John Woo gets it. Timur Bekmambetov got it. Guillermo del Toro usually gets it. But when it comes to French directors it just seems that there are more misses than hits. They barely understand the thrill Americans like in a film, and several remakes of their films have done fantastically here in America, done by non-French directors and actors. Unless you think the adaptation of Hitman last year was anything but a complete bore and seemingly directed by someone who has never played a videogame in his life. But I do give credit to Luc Besson (Fifth Element and The Professional).

Now I don’t mean that I feel this way about all the French. In fact there are several French actors I like. There is Jean Reno as I mentioned. Great in The Professional, good in Ronin, he was even good in Mission Impossible. Solid actor.

And there was Julie Delpy in Killing Zoe – alright you may not have seen that film but you should.

And?? Gerard Depardieu? I wouldn’t count him but I’m out of French actors. I’m sure there must be more, right?

Ok, so the French don’t get it in general. They may do outstandingly well in France, but I’m not aware of them doing well anywhere else.

Still I did have hopes for this movie. But when this director comes out and trashes his film because it’s not art house enough, well you just have to hope that the movie studio really reworked it. I have no doubt that the director’s cut will do well in France. And I expect that Vin Diesel will get initial groups of fans into the film and sell the DVD. But beyond that I have mixed thoughts.

So far I see that Yahoo shows the film having grabbed $12 million over the holiday weekend. That loses to Tropic Thunder but keeps it at 2nd place. Unless you factor in the number of theaters it was in. Because then it loses to The Dark Knight, Traitor, and The House Bunny. It lost to The House Bunny in its second week.

I haven’t had the chance to see the film yet. I was going to see it this week. But after the comments of Kassovitz I’ll push it back a bit. Traitor is more reliable I’m sure and I like Don Cheadle.

But if you have seen the film I’d love to know who was right. The director’s version or the movie studio’s? Just consider the movie you saw, double the time, imagine yourself in a classroom for the extra time, and kill the action.

You tell me.