Mike D'Angelo - Going in Style (1979, Martin Brest)
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62/100
SPOILERS AHOY.
Another film I watched multiple times on cable as a kid but can't be certain I ever saw start to finish until now. Certainly I wasn't mature enough to recognize that this, too, could have been titled No Country for Old Men—given the goofy logline (three septuagenarians decided to rob a bank wearing Groucho glasses because what the hell), it's remarkably bleak, eventually killing or imprisoning the entire principal cast. One might also profitably cite California Split, as our heroes similarly go on an epic casino run (Vegas rather than Reno) that leaves one of them more overwhelmed (or overtaxed, at least) than overjoyed. Brest had a sentimental streak that I don't always love, indulged here via a sore-thumb Strasberg monologue about parental regret and (more damagingly) Joe's insistence upon giving much of the loot to Al's salt-of-the-earth nephew. Nor is Going in Style as funny as I dimly remembered, though Burns gets to be a bit more acid than was usual during his golden-years comeback. (This is also likely the only movie he made during that period in which his character pisses himself. Like I said, no country.) But this could so easily have been a cutesy romp about wily geezers—indeed, I'm pretty sure that accurately describes the 2017 Zach Braff remake ("as the three friends celebrate their good fortune," concludes the Wiki-synopsis)—and it keeps stubbornly refusing to pretend that you can just carpe diem yourself out of creeping obsolescence. More admirable than satisfying, and there's an awful lot of craps action that at best mildly entertaining in the moment (Carney never really finds a strong comic persona for this role), and Burns as always can get overly twinkly. If you've made assumptions about this movie's tone and tenor, though, be advised that those assumptions are almost certainly groundless.
62/100
SPOILERS AHOY.
Another film I watched multiple times on cable as a kid but can't be certain I ever saw start to finish until now. Certainly I wasn't mature enough to recognize that this, too, could have been titled No Country for Old Men—given the goofy logline (three septuagenarians decided to rob a bank wearing Groucho glasses because what the hell), it's remarkably bleak, eventually killing or imprisoning the entire principal cast. One might also profitably cite California Split, as our heroes similarly go on an epic casino run (Vegas rather than Reno) that leaves one of them more overwhelmed (or overtaxed, at least) than overjoyed. Brest had a sentimental streak that I don't always love, indulged here via a sore-thumb Strasberg monologue about parental regret and (more damagingly) Joe's insistence upon giving much of the loot to Al's salt-of-the-earth nephew. Nor is Going in Style as funny as I dimly remembered, though Burns gets to be a bit more acid than was usual during his golden-years comeback. (This is also likely the only movie he made during that period in which his character pisses himself. Like I said, no country.) But this could so easily have been a cutesy romp about wily geezers—indeed, I'm pretty sure that accurately describes the 2017 Zach Braff remake ("as the three friends celebrate their good fortune," concludes the Wiki-synopsis)—and it keeps stubbornly refusing to pretend that you can just carpe diem yourself out of creeping obsolescence. More admirable than satisfying, and there's an awful lot of craps action that at best mildly entertaining in the moment (Carney never really finds a strong comic persona for this role), and Burns as always can get overly twinkly. If you've made assumptions about this movie's tone and tenor, though, be advised that those assumptions are almost certainly groundless.
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