Going in Style, screenplay by Theodore Melfi, based on the story by Edward Cannon - Five out of 10

Going in Style, screenplay by Theodore Melfi, based on the story by Edward Cannon

Five out of 10

Alas, Going in Style in the case of this motion picture only means Going Out in the manner evoked by the line from T.S. Eliot:

“This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.”

The original version opened in 1979 and it had more class, even if we can compare George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg with the great actors from the latest adaptation:

Michael Caine, Alan Arkin and Morgan Freeman.

Unfortunately, they have all seen better days, when the scripts were those from Get Carter, the Cider House Rules, Hannah and Her Sisters, Sleuth, Glengarry Glen Ross, Little Miss Sunshine, Million Dollar Baby, Driving Miss Daisy or The Shawshank Redemption…

If one is mean to this comedy – crime movie, one could put it next to the primitive in the White House and his statements regarding the respect for the law…

Manafort has stolen more than a million from the American people in unpaid taxes. Never mind that, he is a wonderful man, loved by Donald the troglodyte.

The old protagonists of this motion picture have trouble with money and therefore are entitled to rob a bank, could be the abridged message of the feature.

Evidently, there is more to it than this.

The company they had used to work for is involved in a merger and the new entity has no American tax base.

Hence, it can avoid the liabilities, they use the pension funds to pay the bills of the remaining facility and stop paying the pensions of retired, former employees, making the trio of Avengers furious and bent on

Going in Style.

In the first instance, it is Joe Harding aka Michael Caine who thinks about this move, after he is caught in the middle of a robbery, when he is at his bank, talking to a mean representative.

The bank had sent a yellow letter, announcing the recipient that foreclosure would ensue unless he pays the late installment, but the heartless, villainous banker states that this is not that serious…

When the red papers would come, then it is a matter of thirty days.

Joe Harding is friends with Albert Garner aka Alan Arkin and Willie Davis aka Morgan Freeman and they have problems with money, even if they are roommates and have maybe a less unfortunate financial situation than their friend, who has his daughter and granddaughter living with him.

The Three Amigos decide to plan to rob a bank, although Albert is against this move, for he is not a thief, to which the other two argue that they are in the same situation.

Their first move is to get some training at a local store, where Willie and the mastermind Joe would steal various food items, while Albert would wait in the car, in the parking lot, as his comrades take out large pieces of meat, tin cans, even flour, up to the point where the security guard sees them and gives chase to the parking lot, where Albert is missing.

The latter has also entered the shop, where Annie Santori works – she is the mother of one of the students of the man who gives music lessons, but only as long as he can bear the lack of talent of the pupil and in the case of Annie’s offspring it becomes impossible, for he has “no musical bone in his body”

However, Annie Santori is so attracted by the over eighty years old man that she has to get it – while the audience is amused? – and eventually Albert would become her very gifted partner – he makes love in the morning twice…did he say in front of the FBI agent that it was three times?

The scene wherein Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are chased out of the parking lot of the store, where Joe had to steal an electric wheel chair because they had no getaway car is supposed to be amusing, perhaps even more than that, but it only feels awkward, sometimes even annoying and preposterous.

Willie and his partner in crime throw things at the woman security guard, like in the fairy tales, when objects become mountains if thrown by the protagonists of children’s stories, only here it is flour that creates something like a fog in front of the poor agent chasing veterans on the street.

If this were Going in Style, well one would rather choose dullness, unstylishness or gracelessness…whatever the best antonym would be.