Armor (2024) || Starred Sylvester Stallone To Deliver Background Noise

I saw Sylvester Stallone on the poster and played it without second thoughts just to end up with bland action. I mean it’s Sylvester Stallone and you don’t cast the man behind Rambo and Rocky just to give me background noise. Imagine watching a movie halfway and I’m already questioning my life choices. The film promises intensity and chaos but delivers a lukewarm mix of cliches and tired dialogue that could barely keep me awake, let alone on edge.

The movie is about James (Jason Patric) and his son Casey (Josh Wiggins), who work driving armored trucks. They’re hauling gold and money, a “suspicious package” the usual hook. Sylvester Stallone plays Rook, the villain leading the ambush. They get trapped (on a bridge, among other places), ambushed, and need to fight or should I say lazily talk their way out, outsmart(too much of a word for what they did) the bad guys, maybe save their skins and their dignity. Runtime is fairly short (89 minutes), so I thought it’d be tight, fast, no filler.

But the execution of this film turned out to be so flat that even the gunfire feels half-hearted. The pacing drags like a Sunday afternoon nap and the editing doesn’t do much to build tension. For a film called Armor, the story feels painfully unprotected. It is thin, predictable and lacking emotional punch.

I’ll be honest, I was rooting for Stallone and my prediction was that he would get away with the heist real smoothly. I mean the man’s a legend. But even he looked like he wasn’t entirely convinced by what was happening. How did they get him to star in such? The supporting cast didn’t help much either; everyone seemed like they were waiting for their next line rather than living in the scene. The villains? Forgettable. The stakes? Barely there.

There’s no sense of urgency anywhere, no clever choreography, no “wow” moments. It feels like they booked Stallone, built a basic premise, and hoped the cast would carry it. Talk about the plot holes? Some things didn’t make sense. I mean how was the van able to continuously push such large truck forward? It rammed the truck hard before the flip but not even the rear mirror broke off neither was there any much damage done to the van, how???? Also, how long did it take for others to notice the chaos, and are armored cars really put in such obvious traps without backup? Why did characters sometimes act like this was just mildly annoying rather than life-or-death? These gaps just break immersion.

Now, I’ll give this film one thing, which is the country music soundtrack. That was the only part that made any real sense. It grounded the film in a rough, Americana vibe that could have worked if the rest of the movie had followed that tone. The songs carried more grit and emotion than most of the action scenes combined.

By the end, I was left wondering if the film ran out of budget halfway or if they simply forgot to polish the script. It’s one of those movies that make you check the runtime halfway through, not because you’re thrilled, but because you’re praying it’s almost over which of course can be very upsetting.

Rating: 3/10

Who should watch this?
If you’re a die-hard Stallone fan, one who’ll watch anything he’s in or anyone who just wants to listen to good country music with some very terrible background explosions.