Going in Style (2017) * * *

Directed by:  Zach Braff

Starring:  Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin, Ann-Margret, John Ortiz, Christopher Lloyd, Matt Dillon, Siobhan Fallon, Kenan Thompson

Zach Braff's remake of the 1979 dark comedy Going in Style is indeed cheerier than the original film.    The plot outlines remain the same (three elderly men rob a bank in response to their financial/living situations), but otherwise we are talking about two completely different movies.    There is nothing wrong with that.   The actors here are clearly having fun and we do too.   

In the film's opening scene, Joe Harding (Caine) is discussing his grave mortgage situation with a smug, unsympathetic bank manager when the bank is robbed by three masked men.    Joe's mortgage payments ballooned and he is thirty days from being evicted from his house.     When he and his lifelong friends, Willie (Freeman) and Al (Arkin), learn their pension from their former company will be frozen, making their tenuous financial situations even more tenuous, they decide to rob the same bank in retribution.    

Their trial run as fledgling criminals in a supermarket does not go well.    They can't even steal food right and wind up chastised by the store manager (Thompson), who can barely contain his incredulity at the would-be-criminals' pathetic ineptitude.    But soon the trio is in touch with a thief (Ortiz), who teaches them the ropes about crime.    Their plan, alibis, and execution of the plan are all worked out, although not without hitches.    In the 1979 version, which starred George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg as the three friends, the guys almost expected to be caught and prepared for it.     The crime for them was to ease their financial burdens before dying and maybe earn them enough money for a weekend trip to Vegas.   Anything to get them out of the daily doldrums of sitting on a park bench.

Besides Joe's house issues, Willie is in renal failure and needs a kidney, while Al teaches saxophone to absolute no-talent students.    Arkin's non-verbal expressions of his displeasure with one of the students is one of the funniest moments of the movie.    These guys aren't just robbing a bank for kicks.    As in the 1979 version, the actors here are instantly familiar and we are comfortable with them.    Caine, Freeman, and Arkin have an unforced chemistry.    They know and like each other.    Are these the types of roles that earn Oscar nominations (all three men have won Oscars)?    No, but it is great to see them let loose and keep up with the energy Braff establishes early.  

I wasn't a fan of Braff's directorial debut Garden State (2004), which was as lifeless as Going in Style is energetic.    He was not the obvious choice to direct this material, but he finds a nice, easy pace and moves the film along.    This is not the type of film in which anyone goes to jail, which suits me just fine.    The original Going in Style had a dark edge to it.    It doesn't end happily, although Burns was content with the outcome.     This version of Going in Style covers the same themes (how society tends to cast aside the elderly), but does so in a lighter fashion.     Both films say the same things in different ways, and both are very effective.