By A.D. AMOROSI
When Martin Brest – the funny man behind the Robert DeNiro/Charles Grodin caustic action comedy Midnight Run – wrote and directed the first Going in Style in 1979, the world was a different place. Its three stars – George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg – were still-living legends of vaudeville, television and the dramatic stage, respectively. Morgan Freeman, lead actor in the new Going in Style, opening April 7, was still a member of PBS’ kid show The Electric Company. Zack Braff, director of the updated film was but four-years-old. Donald Trump, a running punchline in the movie, was just starting to get negative press.
Co-starring Michael Caine, Alan Arkin (both as Freeman’s heist partners), Ann-Margret, Christopher Lloyd and Matt Dillon, the brand new Going in Style – given a fresh coat of paint by Oscar-nominated Hidden Figures’ author Theodore Melfi. He modernized the tale of three elderly men on the dole looking for some fast hard cash by adding elements of corporate greed, Wall St.’s immensity and a banks-too-big-to-fail subtext to this Trump-era comedy about pension funds becoming a casualty, and old people a liability.
The new Going in Style isn’t as subtle as the original. This time, there are more capers and glossy action antics, but the three new leads do share the original’s elegant sense of timing. That’s something neither youth nor money can buy.
Photo courtesy of Allied Integrated Marketing
Posted on Friday, April 7, 2017
