28/39
Also in Death Race 2000 against David Carradine in 1975
A father and son, working as security for an armored truck company, encounter a team of would-be robbers on a bridge. They find themselves trapped and must come up with a plan to escape and survive. The only other time Sly played an antagonist was in Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over in 2003. Armored cash transports rely heavily on GPS tracking systems to improve their security. If something goes wrong — whether it’s an accident, an attack, or an unexpected stop — the GPS data helps emergency responders understand the situation and get to the vehicle quickly.
How could you not?
I knew «Armor» was going to be a bad movie. One look at the poster or a single viewing of the trailer reveals all anyone would need to know about this movie, better known as a «geezer teaser.» According to Google, a geezer teaser is a movie in which older, well-known male actors, or «geezers,» play prominent roles in the promotional material, but is typically released straight to video and distributed via video on demand—plus, the well-known male actors (in this case, Stallone) will only appear sporadically in the film itself. Now, I knew this before I saw «Armor,» but I found myself in the mood for a bad, cheesy action movie, so I decided to spend $6.99 and rent this movie on Amazon Prime. Big mistake. Truth be told, for the first 25 minutes or so, I didn’t find «Armor» all that bad.
Regardless, I was intrigued
Yes, it looked as basic as a movie can get, with minimal editing and a generic soundtrack, but I did find some things rather interesting, like Jason Patric’s character. Patric plays a recovering alcoholic who has never really taken the time to get better. The movie opens with him waking up at 7am and immediately retrieving a bottle of vodka hidden in his fridge. As someone who enjoys drinking and enjoys movies that feature people drinking, I thought this character introduction was unique enough to warrant my interest — just look past the inconsistency, which is that Patric’s character lives alone, so why would he feel the need to hide a bottle of alcohol in his own home where he lives alone and no one ever seems to visit? Patric’s character is also revealed to work as an armored truck driver with his son, played by Miller Garfinkel.
Their relationship seems slightly strained for some reason, but they get along well enough to work together
Alas, one day they find themselves transporting some particularly valuable cargo, cargo that is sought after by Sylvester Stallone and his merry band of thieves. Enter «Armor» 30 minutes pass before a shot is fired in this movie — 30 minutes pass before the armored truck robbery begins. But when it does, it’s pretty exciting, or at least, as exciting as it can be for a movie like this. If you push all logical thoughts to the back of your brain (one of those thoughts being, “Why doesn’t Jason Patric just drive the bulletproof armored truck into Sly’s gang and drive away?”), you can somewhat enjoy the sequence where Sly and his criminals corner Patric and his son on a bridge in order to steal the contents of their truck. Yes, the special effects in this movie are some of the worst I’ve seen in a 2024 release, but it’s always fun to see Stallone fire a gun, and it’s no different here.
Aside from that opening action sequence, “Armor” doesn’t have much else going for it
After that opening action sequence, the rest of the movie is basically Patric and his son talking to each other while stuck in their truck. On paper, this could be exciting if Patric and his son were discussing ways to escape their captors.