Going in Style

Based on a 1979 comedy, Going in Style follows a trio of lifelong friends (Michael Caine’s Joe, Morgan Freeman’s Willie, and Alan Arkin’s Albert) as they lose their jobs (and pensions) and subsequently decide to stage an ambitious bank heist. It’s an agreeable-enough premise that’s employed to progressively tedious effect by filmmaker Zach Braff, as the director, working from Theodore Melfi’s bland script, abandons the personal, heartfelt style of his first two films in favor of a palpably generic (and aggressively pandering) feel – which, not surprisingly, slowly-but-surely drains the picture of its energy and entertainment value. The movie’s failure is especially disappointing given the effectiveness of the stars’ work here, and yet the actors’ ample charisma is eventually rendered moot in the face of a narrative that’s almost entirely lacking in momentum. It doesn’t help, either, that Braff has punctuated the proceedings with a handful of hopelessly (and embarrassingly) misguided interludes, with the most egregious example of this a disastrously unfunny, padded-out scene involving the protagonists’ efforts at robbing a local supermarket. And while the aforementioned heist is handled relatively well (albeit in as slick, personality-free a manner as one could envision), Going in Style closes with a meandering final stretch that essentially (and effectively) cements its place as an overly-polished and somewhat redundant endeavor (ie the movie, in the end, feels like an extended version of its own trailer).

** out of ****