The film premiered in the US on Friday and it will be shown in Hungarian cinemas from late January. It stars Jean Reno, Matt Dillon and Laurence Fishburne.
The New York Times critic A.O. Scott said Armored is a crime thriller with a soul and recalled Kontroll, a film about Budapest underground workers that brought Antal international attention.
"The norm in the crime-and-violence genre is bloated, cruel, empty nonsense like "Law-Abiding Citizen," Scott said. "Armored" not only has a lower body count, but it is also in possession of a conscience and a soul, like Ty, its battered hero. The movie makes you feel the weight of the greed and brutality it depicts, and it does not take killing lightly."
The film's central characters are armoured-truck guards who plan to steal USD 42 million from one of their company's vehicles. They are ordinary guys "desperate and dumb enough to turn mean when things go wrong," Scott said.
"Mr. Antal, classically trained at the Hungarian Academy of Drama and Film, has an old-fashioned, functional style. He knows how to crash a truck, and also how to build tension out of elemental situations and economical camera movements. He has made an unabashed B movie: basic, brutal and sometimes clumsy, but far from dumb, and not bad at all," Scott said.
The Los Angeles Times described Armored as a well-executed B-movie, elevated by its ensemble cast and the visual eye of its director.
"Antal rightly won praise for his creative camera work in his 2005 comic thriller Kontroll, but his disciplined approach works well here too. (...) "Armored" won't win any prizes, but it does offer comforting evidence that there's still room for a well-crafted B movie among CG-laden spectacles," the Los Angeles Times said.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
