Going in Style (United States, 2017)

Just call it Grumpy Old Crooks. This quasi-remake of a 1979 caper film (which starred George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg) makes wholesale changes to the structure of its forebear – unfortunately few of them are for the better. An inconsequential but engaging piece of fluff has been turned into a misfire that somehow manages to misuse the talents of its three Oscar winning stars, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Arkin. Although Going in Style’s heist represents a high point and gets props for being suitably clever, it’s swamped by bad melodrama and lame comedy.

The filmmakers aren’t really selling this movie for its story, however – they’re banking on the reputations and charisma of the three stars to pull in audiences that don’t often venture out to multiplexes. As such, Going in Style may likely be a bigger draw on home video. The decision to cast an 83-year old (Caine), an 82-year old (Arkin), and a 79-year old (Freeman) is not playing to the typical theater-going demographic. Throw in Christopher Lloyd (age 78) and Ann-Margret (age 76) and it’s clear director Zach Braff isn’t going for the teenage crowd despite the soft PG-13 rating (the content is borderline PG).

One of the problems with Going in Style is that it takes forever to get going, and when it does, there’s not much style in evidence. The setup is interminable. Half the movie is devoted to introducing the characters, establishing their relationships, and making sure the audience is aware that these are good guys not criminals. They have been screwed over by the system, robbed of their pensions by greedy banks and corrupt corporations, and forgotten by a system that’s supposed to protect them. In the original Going in Style, the main characters were a bunch of aging retirees who just decided to pull a caper. Here, with the weight of so much social wrongdoing and desperation weighing things down, it’s not nearly as much fun. And God forbid the characters (or the script) have even the slightest edge. Theodore Melfi’s screenplay works overtime to make sure that no one could view the three criminals as anything other than burnished heroes.

Another big change from the 1979 film is that certain bittersweet elements have been elided, ensuring that the narrative is as bland and vanilla as imaginable. Director Zach Braff believes that the audience doesn’t want anything even a little challenging. So he makes sure the comedy is tasteful and restrained, the drama is tasteful and restrained, and the characters are tasteful and restrained. It would be a stretch (although not much of one) to call Going in Style “wholesome” but it’s dull and badly in need of an injection of energy.

Joe (Caine), Willie (Freeman), and Albert (Arkin) are three former co-workers and friends. Now retired, they live off modest pensions and spend their free time hanging out. Joe lives with his daughter and granddaughter and Willie and Albert share a house across the street. Things start going bad when Joe learns that the adjustable rate on his mortgage has adjusted and he can no longer pay the monthly bills. The bank is unsympathetic. Then the three men’s previous employer is bought and their pensions are eliminated. Faced with mounting bills and no way to pay them, they decide on an unconventional solution: rob a bank.

Once the crime arrives (nearly an hour into the 96-minute running length), things perk up. The segment in which Joe, Willie, and Albert construct their alibis represents a small bit of cleverness in an otherwise unremarkable wasteland. The intricate choreography of their day, which doesn’t become apparent until after the fact, is the kind of thing that viewers of caper films appreciate and, at least in this aspect, Going in Style doesn’t disappoint. In trying to connect this movie with Ocean’s 11 (the original not the remake), Braff and company stack the deck. During the robbery, the trio wears Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. masks.

It’s a cliché to say that Caine, Freeman, and Arkin are on hand to pick up paychecks but it’s true. These roles could have been filled by no-name mediocre actors except then it wouldn’t have gotten financing or distribution. It’s a boondoggle for the actors – a chance to hang out and do something that requires little exertion. Learn the lines, have fun with each other, and go home at the end of the shoot with a nice little bump to the bank account.

Going in Style is just as much a demographic-oriented product as any superhero or robot sci-fi movie. It’s all about marketing with little concern for whether the core film is any good. This is at best made-for-TV quality with stars too big to allow it to go directly where it belongs.

Going in Style (United States, 2017)