Three old friends decide to fight back after being cut adrift by their banks in this knockabout comedy with real star firepower
There is no doubting the chemistry and, indeed, the acting firepower between Hollywood veterans Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin in Going in Style, a knockabout caper about three OAPs who decide to rob a bank after been cut adrift by their pension fund.
However, director and Scrubs alumnus Zach Braff lets the tone of cynical and simmering anger turn to cutesy slush too many times in what is an uneven and occasionally annoying comedy drama.
Going in Style is a remake of the 1979 movie of the same name starring George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg and here our three leads play old buddies who have been shafted by their bank and left gazing into the abyss of destitution in old age. However, in the great Hollywood underdog tradition of "don't get mad, get even", they decide to hit back where it hurts - a sentiment that will ring true with Irish audiences in particular.
The three old duffers refuse to become invisible in our increasingly selfish society and as well as score-settling, Caine - for one - also puts his house in order.
He shakes up his deadbeat drug dealer (no class As, of course) son-in-law and forces him to reconnect with his in no way annoying daughter while making plans for the time that's left for himself.
Going in Style doesn't avoid the spectre of the grim reaper either but the Alzheimer's gags involving Christopher Lloyd's character fall flat and the limited mirth to be had from watching older gentlemen behave badly gets very tiresome very quickly as our bungling criminal novices plot and practise their heist and outwit the faceless corporations.
There are some good riffs on the Kafkaesque indifference of corporations and banks, the pace is leisurely and the jazzy soundtrack lends it a certain elegance.
The humour has the resigned cynicism that comes with age but for every reference to Al Pacino going postal in Dog Day Afternoon (another movie about the “little people” fighting back) or seething rage at corporate America, Braff sugars the pill with dopey guff about the wisdom of very small children that jars with the darker comedy.
The very dapper Caine, a reliably dishevelled Arkin, and a wise (what else?) Freeman are always watchable and play their parts with real gusto. Going in Style is good-natured, spirited, and heart warming but may leave you wanting a bigger pay-off. ***
Alan Corr @corralan
