Three aging would-be bank robbers are armed and dangerous in “Going in Style” — or at least that’s the plan. On the day of the heist, they end up using blanks instead.
You know, sometimes the reviews write themselves. This new comedy, featuring three well-traveled Oscar winners, is indeed firing blanks.
The trio is Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin, as New York retirees furious over their former employer’s plan to liquidate pension funds. Their solution is to rob a bank — a bank in illicit cahoots with their old company — and take exactly what they’re owed.
Each actor has a little character business to work with. Caine has a beloved granddaughter (Joey King) to dote on. Freeman worries about a failing kidney. Arkin has an autumnal romance with the assertive cashier at the local grocery — played by none other than Ann-Margret. (She’ll presumably star in the all-female remake.)
Including a long sequence involving a nonsensical practice robbery at the grocery store, this movie has a huge amount of padding stuffed inside a modest pillowcase. It only runs 96 minutes, but feels much longer.
The director is Zach Braff, the “Garden State” actor-director, who doesn’t appear onscreen here. Braff clearly appreciates these old pros, and the movie doesn’t have as many dumb ageist jokes as you might expect.
Braff does something many filmmakers forget to do, which is to use supporting actors for more than one scene — there are peripheral characters we meet early in the film who get amusing punch lines much later. “SNL” regular Kenan Thompson and John Ortiz benefit from this treatment.
The jokes are tepid, and the situation avoids any serious treatment of old age, or, for that matter, bank robbery. Even when real bullets are fired during the heist, the scene is played for laughs.
One odd surprise is the presence of profanity. Why would a PG-13 movie as cuddly and neutered as this one deploy choice four-letter words?
“Going in Style” is a remake of an unjustly forgotten 1979 film with George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg (its director, Martin Brest, went on to make “Beverly Hills Cop”). The original, while quite funny, gets close to something real — a sense of frustration and disappointment — that grounds the humor.
The remake has nothing like that. Yes, it’s meant to be harmless fun, and feel free to take it that way. But its blandness makes it a waste of time. Especially for the three Oscar winners who ought to know better.
“Going in Style” (2 stars)
A bland remake of a funny 1979 film about three retirees who plan a bank heist. Tepid jokes and a padded running time do not make the going easy, even with Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin on the scene.
Rating: PG-13, for language, subject matter
Showing: Alderwood Mall, Cinebarre Mountlake Terrace, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Stanwood Cinemas, Pacific Place, Sundance Cinemas, Thorton Place Stadium, Woodinville, Cascade Mall
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