The perfect crime--victimless, nonviolent and undetectable--goes terribly awry in the no-holds-barred, action-packed thriller Armored. A crew of armored truck guards executes a meticulously planned robbery of their own security firm, but when their seemingly foolproof plan unravels, the men turn against each other as they desperately try to save themselves.
Armored stars Matt Dillon (Crash), Jean Reno (The Da Vinci Code), Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Amaury Nolasco ("Prison Break"), Fred Ward (Sweet Home Alabama), Milo Ventimiglia ("Heroes"), Skeet Ulrich ("Jericho") and Columbus Short (Stomp the Yard). The film is written by James V. Simpson and directed by Nimrod Antal (Vacancy).

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Even before he began writing Armored, screenwriter James V. Simpson knew he wanted to create an unconventional thriller, a movie that packed plenty of action and suspense but avoided one traditional plot element: bad guys. "Armored is about ordinary, flawed people who are basically good," Simpson says. "These guys are in difficult situations and make bad choices. Then they have to deal with the consequences."
Simpson also wanted to find a unique setting for his story. Inspiration struck the writer one day as he walked his dog near his Vancouver home. An armored car pulled around a corner, and Simpson saw that he, as well as everyone else on the street, was following the truck with their eyes. "I realized immediately that the armored car was a visual cue that everybody was transfixed by," he says. "They were drawn to it automatically. And I knew I had to take that setting for my story."
When Simpson had a finished draft, he submitted it to the prestigious Nicholl Screenwriting Competition, an annual event sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The script caught the attention of producers Chris Lemos and Luis Guerrero, who brought it to Dan Farah of Farah Films & Management. "I loved the concept," says Farah. "It's an action movie, but at the same time the characters are so strong. And it has such a great hook.
"I took the script into all the studios on a Tuesday afternoon," he continues. "Friday morning, Variety announced that Armored was one of the ten Nicholl finalists. We sold it to Sony that afternoon in a bidding war." 
First-time screenwriter Simpson was surprised and delighted that his script sparked a wave of competing interest. "We connected with Josh Donen and (Screen Gems President) Clint Culpepper at Sony," he says. "They really got the story we were trying to tell. They understood the characters and the dynamic between the guards immediately."
Buckaroo Entertainment partners Sam Raimi (Spider-Man) and Joshua Donen had just signed a new deal with Sony to produce. They immediately expressed interest in Armored. "Josh is a Hollywood veteran with incredible experience working with some of the biggest directors in the business," says Farah. "I was thrilled to have him come onboard."
Culpepper shared the script with Nimrod Antal, a young director who had just finished the nail-biting thriller Vacancy for Sony. Like Vacancy and Antal's previous film Kontroll, Armored takes place in a mysterious, confined world. "We didn't even go to any other directors," says Farah. "He had done such a great job with Vacancy. Nimród made this more than just a movie. Even watching the dailies, you felt like you were watching a great film." 
Like Vacancy, some of Armored's crucial sequences take place in claustrophobic settings that add to the onscreen tension. "I enjoy shooting in limited spaces," says Antal. "That kind of stricture forces me to come up with new ideas." 
Heist films are a favorite genre for the director, who grew up in Hungary. "A French filmmaker was once asked why he makes heist films and he said, 'I don't have the guts to rob a bank, so I just make films about it,'" he says. "I thought it would be fun to play with. It seems like it would be a simple genre, but it's very difficult to do well."
The world of armored truck guards also seemed exotic to the director, who says he has always been attracted to unusual subcultures. "I thought each of these guards was a very interesting character and the situation they find themselves in is exciting."
Infusing the script with the kind of authenticity Antal required was tricky. Not many armored car companies were interested in sharing their trade secrets. Finally, Simpson contacted a friend with the Vancouver police who interceded for them. "Armored car services are notorious for being secretive, because they are so vulnerable and susceptible to robberies," he points out. "They were very concerned that we were actually planning a heist, because we were asking for all this detailed inside information."
Once the filmmakers were able to gain entry into that world, they spent time in the garages talking to the drivers and familiarizing themselves with the trucks. Although they weren't able to see everything, Antal says he got a sense of the guards' work lives. "They have a horribly difficult job, if you consider how much they are paid compared to the danger that they're put in everyday. It just didn't equate to me."
As much as some of the actors wanted to do first-hand research, that kind of access was not available to them. For instance, ride-alongs were out of the question. "I've been able to do that when I've played a cop," says Matt Dillon, who plays Chief Officer Bill Cochrane, the man at the heart of the scheme. "But they weren't going to let us ride along in an armored car. The research was still pretty extensive. We were shown what could go on if a similar situation took place in real life."
The guards explained what their day-to-day activities might be and why routine has to be avoided. "They told us things that the average person wouldn't know about," says Simpson. "For example, they never use street names or words that can help to identify where the truck is, to make it hard for anyone eavesdropping on the radio transmissions to track the truck. They may enter a building from one direction and exit another, which makes it hard to predict where the trucks are going to go. They use different routes every day, so they never go to a destination the same way."
An important element that Simpson was able to integrate into the movie is the truck's internal safety lock, which protects it in the event that a guard is killed or coerced into opening the truck. "The guards who are inside the trucks can use what's call the slam lock so it cannot be physically opened from the outside."
Seeing his first screenplay produced has been the experience of a lifetime for Simpson. "To use a sports analogy, it's like I've been slaving away for twenty years in triple-A ball and now I've finally been called up to the big leagues," he says. "I've just stepped out onto the field at Yankee Stadium, and I'm living the dream. As a screenwriter, it doesn't get any better than this."

THE GUYS ON THE TRUCK
Each of the diverse characters in Armored has a different motive for taking part in the heist, but all have one thing in common: none of them are heroes, and none are villains. That complexity sent the filmmakers looking for actors who could straddle the line between good and evil. From industry veterans Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno and Fred Ward, to relative newcomers Columbus Short, Skeet Ulrich, Amaury Nolasco and Milo Ventimiglia, the cast of Armored helped shape the story by bringing unique insights to their characters.

BEHIND THE ARMOR
Like each of Nimrod Antal's previous films, Armored has a visual style of its own, a tribute to the director's meticulous attention to detail. "Visually this movie is just awesome," says Farah. Antal assembled a crack team to help him build the unique look, including cinematographer Andrzej Sekula, whose resume includes Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.
Armored is a continuation of a partnership the director and the cinematographer began on Vacancy. "The director of photography is probably the person I work most closely with on the set," says Antal. "I prefer a relationship that is very intimate and very collaborative. I have a pretty strong visual sense, but I also invite and encourage as much input as possible and Andrzej is the ultimate collaborator. His visual style is sparse, very clean and stunning. The lighting, the film stock and everything else he used definitely goes against the grain. His eye is absolutely spectacular." 
Antal likens the experience of working with Sekula to sitting in the passenger seat of racecar driven by an expert. "If the guy is a good driver, you can be driving with him while he is going 200 MPH, and you still feel comfortable. Andrzej thinks that going 200 MPH, doing power slides and turns are nothing remarkable because he does it every day." 
One of Sekula's inspired ideas was to shoot a crucial scene from an unexpected vantage point: the truck's rearview mirror. "It sounds simple," says Antal. "In reality, it's very powerful. It serves the purpose of story-telling extremely well."
Another Vacancy alumnus, production designer Jon Gary Steele, also joined the team for Armored and made what Antal says was an invaluable contribution to the overall look of the film. "The sets he built were really special," says the director. "We found a location in Fontana, California, an old steel factory that was falling apart. It looked perfect on the outside, and we had to create an interior area that would feel completely organic to the exterior locations."
Because almost half the film is spent inside the factory, Antal and Steele were challenged to keep it visually interesting. "We decided to build an interior for it on a soundstage that would have several levels," says Steele. "That gave the director a lot of different options for a multi-level chase in a cavernous space."
"Gary had a great idea about using different tiers to create more tension," says Antal. "He designed an Escher-esque stairway system that was sensational. It gave the set a depth that we wouldn't have had if we stayed on the floor for the entire time."
Steele constructed a model of the set for Antal and Sekula to use for the planning of each shot. "We could then talk about how it was going to be used," says the production designer. "Andrzej decided where we needed to provide places to hang lights. The design process was finished within a few weeks."
Then the crew had less than seven weeks to build the whole set. "It's all made from new wood painted to look like concrete," says Steele. "Almost everything is brand new, except for a couple of rented equipment pieces. Everything else, we aged. Our scenic artist, Charlie Bryant, piled dirt on it so it looks like it's been there for many, many years."
In addition to giving the filmmakers more control over the location, building the set allowed a few more perks for the actors. "I kept forgetting that we were on a soundstage," says Fishburne. "I've worked in abandoned warehouses that have been converted into soundstages and they often look like what this set looks like. However, we had heat and there wasn't any live vermin running around. There were golf carts, a restroom, running water."
But those comforts didn't mean the filmmakers had to compromise on verisimilitude. "I was really blown away with the way they were able to recreate that steel mill," says Dillon. "It was so vast and the surfaces of everything matched perfectly with the real thing. The look and the texture were completely consistent with the rest of the film."
"It looked like it was lifted out of a steel mill and put onto a studio lot," adds Ventimiglia. "That added so much texture to the story. We were breathing the dirt, feeling the gravel underneath our boots. It put me right into the scene."
The second half of the film is packed with stunts that look alarmingly dangerous, but Antal worked closely with stunt coordinator Lance Gilbert and his crew to ensure that all possible precautions were taken. "I was lucky to be surrounded by really talented people," says the director. "Lance is a spectacular guy and very good at what he does. I dread doing stunts, because I never want anybody to get hurt, but it looks awesome and it all turned out well."
The planning of the movie's sophisticated stunt work began with a scene any 10-year-old boy could relate to. "Lance and I were on the floor with Hot Wheels trying to block movement. If anybody at the studio had seen us, I think they would have been concerned about where we were going. Two grown men on the ground playing with Hot Wheels isn't necessarily reassuring."
The all-male cast had a great deal of fun with the film's rough and tumble sequences. Nolasco admits that he's a little bit of a daredevil who enjoys doing stunts himself. "I jumped off a six-story building," he says. "There were a lot of safety precautions taken. For Lance, safety came first. He walked me through the whole process, and then asked me if I wanted to do it. I said, 'Are you kidding me? Why not?' I had a stunt double that was amazing, but I wanted to take the leap to see how it felt. That's the fun part."
"I like the physical part of my job best sometimes," says Ulrich. "In some ways, it's more relaxing than doing long dialogue sequences. You're engaged in a different way. But it is hard to get to sleep after some scenes. You're just so invigorated by the experience that it takes a little while to let that energy go." 
While few people have ever experienced guarding millions of dollars in an armored car, director Nimrod Antal believes viewers of all ages and backgrounds will be able to relate to the film's central themes. "We've all had those moments where we feel stuck between a rock and a hard place," he says. "I think that it is a basic human emotion that everybody can understand.
"We've made a very high-octane, suspense-filled heist flick, which I haven't seen for quite a while," he continues. "Making Armored was intense and intimidating at times, because of the actors and because of the scope of the film. Everybody brought their A-game every day and I was constantly reminded of how lucky I was."

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

NIMROD ANTAL (Director) was born in Los Angeles but moved to Hungary at the age of 17. He was accepted into the prestigious Hungarian Academy of Drama and Film, where he studied cinematography before deciding that his true calling was directing. After graduation, Antal made his first feature film, Kontroll, an edgy drama set in the Budapest subway system. Kontroll won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, and earned awards at festivals in Chicago, Copenhagen, Philadelphia and Warsaw.
Most recently, he directed the hit thriller Vacancy, starring Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale.  He is currently directing the Fox film Predators, produced by Robert Rodriguez through Troublemaker Studios and starring Adrien Brody.

JAMES V. SIMPSON (Writer) was born and raised in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, a small city that is home to the world-renowned Stratford Shakespearean Festival.
Obsessed with movies from a young age, Simpson spent much of his childhood writing and making his own short films.  His passion for cinema eventually led him to relocate to Vancouver, where he attended Vancouver Film School. 
After Film School, Simpson worked in the thriving Vancouver Film Industry while continuing to write in his spare time. 
In a fairytale ending befitting Hollywood, the final draft of Armored became Simpson's first screenplay sale to Sony Pictures Entertainment and Screen Gems the same day that the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting announced Simpson's first draft had beaten out over six thousand entries to become one of the top ten finalist.
Simpson now writes full-time and splits his time between Los Angeles and Vancouver where he lives with his wife Joanne and volunteers to raise Guide Dogs for the British Columbia Guide Dog Society.

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