History is full of movies about old people doing things that old people don’t normally do. Like, go to spring break, or go to Las Vegas, or go to Antarea. Those are all recent examples, but the Old People Acting Young genre dates back decades, including Martin Brest’s 1979 film Going In Style, in which three senior citizens, played by George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg, rob a bank. The geriatric heist comedy is being remade by Zach Braff, who might be trying to make a Garden State for the AARP crowd. I hope grandpas like the Shins!
This time, the trio of thieves will be played by Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Alan Arkin, and now there’s a pension subplot. “Lifelong buddies Willie, Joe, and Al decide to buck retirement and step off the straight-and-narrow for the first time in their lives when their pension fund becomes a corporate casualty,” the official plot summary reads. “Desperate to pay the bills and come through for their loved ones, the three risk it all by embarking on a daring bid to knock off the very bank that absconded with their money.”
Think of Going In Style — the trailer for which includes the requisite “old people don’t know how to use cell phones” gag — as Ocean’s Eleven, but if every character was Carl Reiner. That sounds wonderful.
Going In Style comes out on Apr. 7, 2017.
