BEFORE: Went out with my friend Amy last night, to a new German beer garden in Manhattan - OK, so it's not really a garden, because it's indoor, so I guess it's more of a beer hall. I had this internet coupon for 2 hours of sausages and 2 liters of beer, for a reduced price. Now that's the kind of heist I can get behind!
Another armored car heist tonight - I noticed that the pay channels were running this 2009 film concurrently with "The Town", so I put them on a DVD together. Linking was particularly tough tonight - the best I could manage was to go from Ben Affleck, who was in "Pearl Harbor" with Cuba Gooding Jr., who was in "As Good As It Gets" with Skeet Ulrich, who appears here.
THE PLOT: A newbie guard for an armored truck company is coerced by his veteran coworkers to steal a truck containing $42 million. But a wrinkle in their supposedly foolproof plan divides the group.
AFTER: Short and sweet tonight, this one clocks in at under 90 minutes - whereas the first cut of "The Town" was rumored to be four hours long. (See, it's called "editing" for a reason...)
At least this film makes it easy to root for someone - there's one security guard, an Iraq war veteran, who reluctantly goes along with the heist, because he's in desperate need for cash, taking care of his brother. He then changes his mind when he sees what the other guards are capable of to get the money, and squares off against them.
There are a number of, well, not plotholes, let's call them conveniences, as the security guards fight over the money - it's awful convenient that they're in an abandoned factory that just happens to be in a cell phone/walkie-talkie dead zone - so no one can alert the authorities or call for back-up. It's awfully convenient that the lead villain guard knows where the hero lives, so he can swing by and pick up his brother to use as a hostage. And so on, and so on...
For that matter, it's awfully convenient that 6 security guards all feel underpaid, and are all willing to violate their duties to fake a robbery, and they all just happen to work on the same shift, on the same two armored cars. That seems just a little to tidy, which suggests a few shortcuts in the script.
As in last night's film, even a well-planned heist can encounter unexpected snags, and things can go perfectly right, up until the point where something goes wrong, forcing things to spiral out of control. No crime is perfect, no play is foolproof - so both films end up being a primer on why you shouldn't commit armed robbery.
Also starring Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne (last seen in "Predators"), Jean Reno (last seen in "Couples Retreat"), Fred Ward (last seen in "Silkwood"), and Milo Ventimiglia.
RATING: 4 out of 10 hot dogs (at least, I think that's what they were eating at that diner place)
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