Margarita Movies

Choosing Margarita Movies is difficult, but sometimes a film makes it easy on you by looking so low-rent and trashy that Dan, Han and I all start punching each other in the shoulder with excitement when we see a trailer because a film looks like solid fried margarita gold. Armored was one of those films.

We saw trailers for this thing months ago. The premise is, a bunch of armoured car security guys knock off their own armoured car, but one of them decides to be a good guy and fights back. It has a cast of guys who have between them been in a few reasonable films so it looked like it would be entertaining. An exciting margarita movie prospect!

We get to the Pink Taco, and because the yuletide season is upon us, the Christmas decorations are up. What this means is, a bright pink christmas tree and pink fairy lights everywhere. Stay classy, Pink Taco. Because it’s nearing Christmas, the whole of the mall is packed. Pink Taco in particular is JAM PACKED with cougars. The Taco is always a favourite stomping ground of the Greater Californian Wild Cougar, but it was seriously like a cougar petting zoo in there. Horrifyingly, there were no girls working at the bar when we got there, only the Brotenders. This is grim stuff for us. We’re basically like adventurers or soldiers every Saturday, daring to risk our lives for 2-3 hours seeing a terrible film so nobody else has to. We need to see some ladies before we go in just to give us something to cling onto during the desperate times.

I try not to schedule socialising after Margarita Movie because I could be in any state from sleepy to comatose, but this evening I had a place I needed to be, so I was trying not to get too wasted. One of the bartenders who we’re friendly with and knows of our traditions asks us what film we’re seeing, we say ‘Armored’. He immediately gives us all a freebie strong drink. Uh-oh. We then complained to him about the gender imbalance in serving staff at the Taco that day and he immediately airlifted in the nice barmaid who was so kind about my hangover a few weeks back.

In we go! Armored is about a team of the shittiest security guys imaginable driving security vans around some shitty city in America working for a guy that looks like David Lynch. They are BROTHERS. They love each other and would do ANYTHING for each other. Matt Dillon is the leader and Columbus Short is his godson, even though they don’t actually look that far apart age-wise. Dan tells me that ‘Columbus’ is a perfectly reasonable name for a black person, I think it is actually kind of terrible.

Matt Dillon blows Columbus Short’s mind by telling him that they plan on ripping off one of the security vans for a cool 42 mil. Now - he does this at the loneliest hot dog stand in the world at about three in the morning, after some drinks. They are going to go ahead with the plan the next morning. This means he’s giving this guy about four hours to decide whether or not he wants to commit a massive felony.

A chance encounter from a welfare agent threatening to take Columbus Short’s graffiti-happy little brother from him changes Columbus Short’s honourable, noble mind and he is in for the plan. What they were going to do if he said no, I have no idea. None of this film is very planned out at all.

At this point we see Peter Petrelli and his lopsided face from Heroes, who is a really deep and three dimensional character. You know what his character is? He eats four hot dogs at a time. That’s all there is to him. Deep stuff. He just turns up, eats four hot dogs, and establishes that that’s his thing.

The squad of armoured car guys heads to a deserted warehouse - I don’t know how many deserted warehouses there are in America but it seems like nobody has trouble finding them in films. Even though the trucks have GPS, which is CLEARLY ESTABLISHED in an earlier scene, it’s all part of the plan for the guys to hang out in a warehouse for a bit inbetween check-in calls. This makes zero sense but it’s the closest thing to a plan in the entire film.

Disaster strikes, as a homeless guy happens to be in this warehouse. Evil Lawrence Fishburne shoots him, and the band of brothers is immediately splintered. They turn on each other. Columbus Short holes up in one of the armoured cars and the crux of the film is upon us - how are they going to get him out of that fucking van! It turns out that the main thrust of the film’s action is watching them swing a big bit of metal at the pins in the doors on the van, so they can get him out of there. This is seriously the thing in the film that gets the most screentime - *swing* *CHANK* *swing* *CHANK* over and over again. Will someone hurt their hand? So exciting! Spoilers: yes someone hurts their hand.

Where’s Peter Petrelli during all this, I hear you ask? Good question, chums. Peter Petrelli is eating four hot dogs at a time back at the loneliest hot dog stand in the universe, and his ears are pricked up like fucking Lassie’s at the sound of a siren that Columbus Short manages to set off. He turns up on the scene, gets gutshot, and his lopsided face gets even more lopsided with all the pain he’s in. If he was acting any harder I’m pretty sure his mouth would be on sideways.

The film at this point is ostensibly kind of like Panic Room - Columbus Short is trapped in the van, they need to get him out. The only issue is, he keeps sneakily getting out of the fucking van every time he feels like it, completely undetected. He gets out to blow some stuff up to cause a distraction. He gets out to use a walkie talkie. He gets out to go pick up a sandwich from the local shop and then goes back because he forgot to get a drink to go with it. None of the rest of the cast notice that he keeps sauntering out of the van and back like a fucking ninja.

You don’t misuse a great talent like Jean Reno, and so he has an epic part to play in all this - he’s nipped to Columbus Short’s house to kidnap his brother to use as a bargaining chip. This is the same brother that Matt Dillon says is ‘like family’ earlier in the film. I think they are subtly trying to tell the audience that Matt Dillon is a bastard.

At this point, Han is fast asleep next to me. “Will they knock the pins out or won’t they?” is just too much for him to handle. Dan kept asking him stuff but Han was too drunk to even bother opening his eyes.

Did I mention that Columbus Short is an ex-Marine? He is. The whole film is kind of like a shitty Die Hard in a warehouse where nobody has any kind of plan whatsoever. I don’t know how these working class security guys are going to explain how they got robbed and then all mysteriously had grandmothers die and leave them 42 million dollars between them. Armored does not have the answers to any of that sort of question.

The film ends at this point. Columbus Short sets a deadly trap and blows either Jean Reno or Lawrence Fishburne up, then Matt Dillon for some reason gets in an armoured car and tries to run him over, but, caught by his own hubris, accidentally drives into a big hole in the ground. Then Columbus Short is shocked to learn that he will for some reason be rewarded for his criminal activity… or something. We were already getting up to leave shouting “WHAT THE FUCK” at this point.

I will of course be adopting Dan’s SCALE scale for the scientific rating of all Margarita Movies.

S - Story: This story is fucking weak as shit. There’s no plan, which for a heist film is a bit of a fucking drawback. They’re just going to carry off 42 million dollars and somehow not get caught. I give this weak shit a 2.

C - Comedy: There’s really very little to none, intentional or otherwise. 2.

A - Awesomeness: There are a few explosions, and guys getting shot, and a totally gratuitous car chase.  I guess I can charitably hand out a 5.

L - Ladies: There is precisely one female character in this film and she is a middle aged welfare representative. 0.

E - Et Cetera: There’s really not much to love about this film. 1.

NEXT WEEK: NOT LOVELY BONES, YOU CAN’T FUCKING MAKE ME GET DRUNK AND WATCH A FILM ABOUT A LITTLE GIRL GETTING MURDERED, FOR FUCK’S SAKE, I’M NOT MADE OF STONE

-Nick