I'm a basic fella, I see Chazz Palminteri, Til Schweiger and a phook off Baretta on the poster and I watch! 'Body Armor' (2007)is an old school, Teflon-tough, cheese-loaded, pleasingly 90s flavoured actioner. Handsomely lithe Til plays darkly brooding retired bodyguard John Ridley, who, through a crude twist of fate is hired to protect his arch nemesis Lee Maxwell (Chazz Palminteri), a merciless contract killer seeking redemption. Outside of the surprisingly muscular action, my main fascination with 'Body Armor' is the fearlessly formulaic text which genuinely appears to be fashioned entirely from recycled dialogue!!!! With the sole, glaring omission of 'I'm getting too old for this!' the purloined prose has been brazenly lifted from some of the more prosaic examples of Seagal's oeuvre! So I would strongly advise against embarking upon a drinking game generously toasting each heroically hackneyed exchange, as you will be mortally medicated midway through the first act, mayte!
If you still appreciate the kinetic, hyper-stylized shenanigans of a superfluously sleek, Olivier Megaton-helmed EuropaCorp style shoot 'em up, Gerry Lively's boisterously Baretta-blasted 'Body Armour' is well worth a shot! The ravishing Barcelona backdrop and dynamically driving score by Jose Mora are the film's more notable highlights. Objectively, 'Body Armor' is not without its flaws, and both actors are plainly aware of that fact, but, personally, I enjoy this kind of barnstormingly escapist brain-melt to noisily distract myself from an increasingly monotonous reality, which it does rather well. As an aside, I could see powerhouse director Isaac Florentine fashioning a zesty upgrade of this with a menacingly grizzled JCVD as the remorseful ex-assassin Lee, and pyrotechnical pugilist Scott Adkins as his fleet-fisted antagonist Ridley.
