Going in Style – social issues commentary or just “Old Guy Robbing Banks”?
Going in Style boasts the Oscar winning résumés of its stars Alan Arkin, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. Since its trailer dropped in December, it has portrayed itself as a sort of caper comedy—a Dirty Grandpa meets Ocean’s 11; Oceans 67, Geriatric Edition, if you will. The film itself is neither of these things and the most striking thing watching it is the internal struggle at work on screen.
Going in Style is a remake of the vaguely charming, mostly low-stakes 1979 comedy where Oscar winners Art Carney and George Burns and acting legend Lee Strasberg decide to rob a bank, mostly because of ennui. This 2017 remake, as a film of its time, immediately sets up the trio as losers in a corrupt system. And in typical fashion of a film seeking to tap into the zeitgeist, it rails against society’s disregard for the elderly, about the (presumably) inherently crooked nature of banks, and about the outsourcing of labour to the detriment of good red-blooded Americans. These are all elements of an incisive, if moralistic, film. The film’s least spontaneous moments come when Michael Caine, the mastermind of the trio, becomes a Bernie Sandersesque mouthpiece for all these issues, railing against the corrupt system. Inorganic, yes, but not necessarily problematic. There’s value in his spiel and the film discloses a distinct desire to consider. This becomes an issue when the film begins to struggle with its convergent desire to provide light, easily digestible entertainment.
Caine’s Joe is a pensioner who is at the bank to talk about the possibility of his house being foreclosed on because of his employer’s skipping out on pension payments. It is then that he becomes witness to a bank robbery. An incidental wrongplace-wrong-time incident becomes a right-place-right-time one when with one month left on his house and a discontinued pension scheme, Joe and his buddies decide to rob a bank. The screenplay coasts on the charm and gravitas of the actors themselves, never quite convincing us that these men would definitely decide on this tack to solve their issues. Sure, the