Zach Braff directs a breezier, geezier remake of comedy 'Going in Style'
In Martin Brest's 1979 original “Going in Style,” George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg played senior citizens on welfare who decide to improve their financial status by robbing a bank.
In Zach Braff's updated, breezier remake (thanks in part to Rob Simonsen's retro score pulsing with the bubbly bravado of Jerry Goldsmith's themes to 1970s TV dramas “Police Story” and “Barnaby Jones”), a geezer trio robs a bank as an act of retribution to an amoral banking system that destroys lives.
Joe (Michael Caine) witnesses a robbery at his own bank. He admires the precision of the operation. He tells his best pals Willie (Morgan Freeman) and Al (Alan Arkin) they should rob a bank, too.
All three receive pensions from a company that's now moving to Vietnam where the laws no longer require them to pay benefits.
No more pensions. And the bank is about to foreclose on Joe's house.
“Going in Style” has been written in stylish dialogue by Oscar nominee Theodore Melfi, whose “Hidden Figures” and the Bill Murray comedy “St. Vincent” gave us well-defined characters imbued with a sense of humanity and sharp repartee.
“Are you 5-0?” asks a shady character named Jesus (John Ortiz), who apparently watches CBS TV cop shows.
“We're almost 8-0!” Joe replies.
Joe has a lovely granddaughter named Brooklyn (Joey King) whom he adores. Her deadbeat dad is out of the picture, so Joe feels especially responsible for Brooklyn and his hardworking daughter (Maria Dizzia).
Willie secretly wrestles with renal failure. If he doesn't get a kidney transplant really soon, he could be going in style to the morgue.
Meanwhile, in the movie's least convincing subplot (not in the original movie), a radiantly sexual Ann-Margret puts the moves on Al, who seems immune to her alluring overtures.
Former TV “Scrubs” star Braff, whose impressive directorial debut “Garden State” far overshadows his insular follow-up “Wish You Were Here,” treats “Going in Style” as an old-fashioned caper picture with fashionably old movie stars as its would-be criminal underdogs.
Caine, Freeman and Arkin share a comfortable camaraderie as three old pals who know each other so well, they can forgive each other for cranky outbreaks or poor decisions that might crush younger relationships.
In a seemingly innocuous scene outside a grocery store, a woman drops the F-bomb for no obvious purpose.
It's a direct reference to Brest's 1979 original that generated a big controversy over its R rating, awarded to the film because Burns comically lobbed his own F-bomb.
Other movies during the 1970s, such as “All the President's Men,” used that word but received a far more market-friendly PG rating.
The filmmakers appealed and fought the rating, but finally snipped the offending word to win their PG.
So, in addition to pumping up the action and bumping up the comedy in his remake, Graff did something Brest could not: He detonated the F-bomb while still dodging the dreaded R rating.
“Going in Style”
★ ★ ★
Starring: Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin, Matt Dillon
Directed by: Zach Braff
Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated PG-13 for drug use, language, sexual references. 97 minutes