Disappointing
Summary
Armor has some decent performances from Patric and Wiggins, but Stallone is just there for the paycheck and you can tell early on which way it’s going to go by the end. It has its moments with some awesome explosions, but aside from that Armor is generic stuff.
Plot: Academy Award Nominee Sylvester Stallone and Jason Patric star in an action-packed, thriller about the lengths one man will go to save what’s left of his family and reclaim his own life. James and his son Casey are armored truck drivers tasked with delivering a suspicious package. After a violent ambush on the road, James and Casey are trapped until they discover the value of what they have been carrying and join forces to outgun and outwit their attackers.
Review: I was particularly interested in Armor because it looked like we were finally going to see Sylvester Stallone in full-on villain mode which is something we haven’t really witnessed before.
In Armor Sly plays the leader of a gang of armed robbers who think robbing an armored truck will be easy. They underestimate their opponents (Jason Patrick & Josh Wiggins), a father and son who will protect their cargo at all costs. Although this is an action picture there are some nice dramatic moments especially between Patric and Wiggins. Patric’s character is an alcoholic who still struggles with his addiction and blames himself for a fatal accident; this gives us some nice father/son moments adding to the drama.
Sly is basically on autopilot here where he’s never quite evil or good, but somewhere in the middle; you still like him as it’s Sly being his appealing self however, I was very disappointed at the lazy finale which should have been far more interesting than it was.
There is at least some impressive action with real explosions and plenty of shoot-outs making it a mostly well-paced 90 minutes. As I’m a Stallone completist I’ll likely buy it on Blu-ray but it’s not one I’ll watch that often.
Overall, Armor isn’t especially memorable and I was hoping Stallone’s character was going to be more interesting than he was; there are a few decent set-pieces but nothing that really sets the world on fire making this likely a one-time watch for most viewers.