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“Going in Style”: Age Old Fun
By Sandra Olmsted
Going in Style, a remake of the 1979 film, has been nicely updated by director Zach Braff and screenwriter Theodore Melfi to reflect current issues for baby boomers. The film also features senior stars and Oscar winners, who play along side younger cast members, making the film appealing to many ages.
Braff, who starred in and directed the TV series Scrubs, also incorporates plenty of laughs and warm fuzzy moments. In this adaptation of Edward Cannon’s short story, retired friends Willie (Morgan Freeman), Joe (Michael Caine), and Al (Alan Arkin) decide to get even with their former employer and its accomplices for cheating them of their pensions and retirement’s meager comforts.
It all starts while Joe is in the bank discussing the coming foreclosure on his home with the unethical banker (Josh Pais) who sold him a bad refinancing deal, and three-masked bank robbers burst into the bank. Although the head robber takes a dislike to the sniveling, unethical banker, he takes pity on Joe, philosophizing that a civilization has a responsibility to care for the elderly.
Joe is intrigued by how easily the robbers get away when the FBI can’t even track down the philosophic robber’s distinctive tattoo. Then the steel mill, where Joe, Al, and Willie earned their pensions, merges and moves operations to Vietnam reorganizing in such a way to stopping paying pensions. Facing foreclosure and no home for himself, daughter, and granddaughter Brooklyn (Joey King), he has nothing to lose, so Joe persuades Al and Willie to consider robbing their local bank.
Willie, who needs a kidney transplant but is low on the list because of his terrible health insurance, would like to have the money for a few visits to his daughter and granddaughter before he dies and signs on for the heist. Even Al is pushed to the edge when he hears that the steel conglomerate is going use their pension to pay its debts. Planning the heist invigorates the trio, and Al starts a passionate romance with Annie (Ann-Margret).
Meanwhile, Willie keeps secret bad news from his doctor, and Joe reaches out to his daughter’s ex-husband and persuades him to begin stepping up as a father and to help him find a low life to school him and his friends in bank robbing. This leads the trio to Jesus (John Ortiz), who rescues dogs and loves animals. Joe and Willie have strong relationships with their daughters and especially their granddaughters, although Willie’s is long distance. Once they plan and execute their robbery, FBI agent Hamer (Matt Dillon) is hot on their trail.
For cinephiles, Going in Style should seem somewhat familiar, but this version is more topical and pointed, in terms of the current political atmosphere with a Robin Hood spin. Where the 1979 version focuses on the three aged characters escaping their boring retirement lives, this one focuses on the three seniors embracing life and getting even with the bad guys complicit in stealing their hard-earned pensions.
Going in Style is a cautionary tale related to the move to privatize Social Security and Medicare by putting them in the hands of bankers and businessmen. The film also celebrates the power of women and diversity and humanizes immigrants.
The film’s all-star cast includes Christopher Lloyd and Kenan Thompson, and all the performances are top notch comical ones. Because Going in Style is rated PG-13 for drug content, language and some suggestive material, it is not appropriate for young children; however, older kids can enjoy how the younger characters see their grandfathers as not just old people.
Running a fun, fast, and humorous 96 minutes, Going in Style, a Warner Bros. release, is in theaters by April 7 with many local theaters running advanced screenings on Thursday, April 6.
