A trio of aged Oscar-winners make this remake of a 1979 movie a classy, stylish and popular tale of pensioners’ revenge on greedy banks

Collectively, the film careers of Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin span more than 170 years and run to very nearly 400 films. So I think we can safely say that at the respective ages of 84, 79 and 83 that they’re… well, shall we say, more than a little past halfway?

It is this realisation that gives Going In Style, an otherwise gently amiable New York crime caper, its edge, emotional punch and sheer likeability. After all, if you’re going to make a film about three old geezers robbing a bank, then a cast really doesn’t come much classier, stylish or, indeed, more authentically venerable than this trio of Oscar-winners.

If the idea sounds familiar, that’s probably because it’s a remake of the 1979 film of the same name starring the late George Burns, and possibly because, bizarrely, there are echoes of Golden

Years, a little-seen British film from last year that starred Alun Armstrong, Bernard Hill and Virginia McKenna. But my goodness, the American take on the same theme benefits from being given an all-star Hollywood makeover.

Joe (Caine), Willie (Freeman) and Albert (Arkin) are three friends growing old together in New York. They all used to work for the same steel company but these days they pass the time playing pétanque (and yes they do play that in New York – who knew?) drinking beer and tormenting the waitress in their local diner. But they all have problems – Joe is behind with his mortgage, Willie has kidney trouble, while Albert can only make ends meet by giving saxophone lessons to tone-deaf teenagers. And then – in a twist that I hope couldn’t happen here – their old steel company is taken over and their pension fund raided to pay off creditors. With only desultory social security payments coming in, now they’re really broke. So when Joe is caught up in the crossfire of an armed bank raid, it gives him an idea. ‘I think I may rob a bank,’ he says quietly one evening, and while the others