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Funny and Fun, ‘Going In Style’ Is Endearin

Dinner & A Movie

By Teri Bayus

Eccentric, hysterical, dear and profound are the first adjectives that fell out of my mouth after viewing “Going In Style.”

With three of our finest heritage actors, a strong script and excellent direction, this is the comedy of the year. A reboot of a 1979 movie directed by Martin Brest and featuring George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg, this new version just as funny as the original.

Zach Braff, the brilliant mind who brought us “Garden State,” directs Going In Style. I imagine this was a situation where he saw an opportunity to work with three of the greatest actors of this generation and took it, instead of this being some sort of passion project on his part.

That is the selling point of the movie, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Arkin. Each are legends on their own, but seeing all three of them together is a pleasure for any film fan. You can tell they had a blast filming together and it clearly shows in the final product.

In the film, three senior citizens living check-to-check on Social Security and even reduced to eating dog food at times, decide they have had enough. They plan to rob a bank but the problem is, they don’t even know how to handle a gun.

This is a social commentary on growing old in America and what we are sometimes driven to, due to our crappy circumstances.

Joe (Caine), Willie (Freeman), and Albert (Arkin) decide that they need professional help of the criminal variety. Joe goes to his deadbeat former son-in-law (who manages a shady medical marijuana shop) hoping that he can put them in touch with an even shadier (and smarter) element.

The wannabe bank robbers meet with a man named, Jesus (John Ortiz), who agrees to teach, train and mentor the guys in exchange for 25% of the take; if they can avoid tipping their hand to the authorities and actually pull off the robbery. All this is just the movie’s set-up.

With a suspicious FBI agent named Hamer (Matt Dillon) seemingly on to the trio, whether they go through with their planned bank robbery (and/or steer clear of law enforcement) is far from the end of this story.

It’s not all giggles. There’s a deeper message in Going In Style about living your life until the very end, and not sitting back and letting others ruin your life.

Best line was, “These banks practically destroyed this country. They crushed a lot of people’s dreams, and nothing ever happened to them. We three old guys, we hit a bank. We get away with it, we retire in dignity. Worst comes to the worst, we get caught, we get a bed, three meals a day, and better health care than we got now.”

Whether it’s watching these guys tear up at the site of the granddaughters, or just busting each other over the smallest of things, it was dear.  Funny and fun to watch, I loved every moment of Going In Style.

Teri Bayus is the Host of Taste Buds, shown on KSBY Ch. 6 at 3:30 p.m. Sundays and The C-W Ch. 7 at 11 a.m. Sundays, and are available online at: www.tastebuds.tv, and Taste Buds Channel on YouTube. Dinner and a Movie is a regular feature of Simply Clear Marketing & Media.

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