Directed by Zach Braff
Written by Theodore Melfi, based on the 1979 story by Edward Cannon
Cast: Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin, Ann-Margret, Christopher Lloyd, Joey King, Peter Serafinowicz, John Ortiz, Matt Dillon, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Maria Dizzia, Josh Pais
Soundtrack: Rob Simonsen
Let’s keep this simple.
If you’re reading this, it means you know how to to read. If you know how to read, it means you can read the cast list for this movie. If you read the cast list for this movie, you might infer, reasonably, that this movie would be very good, if not fantastic.
Unfortunately, your inference would be incorrect.
If there’s one thing that hurts me most when it comes to Hollywood films, it’s wasted potential, but, unfortunately, throwing a bunch of top talent together doesn’t always work out like you hope (as we well know). In this case, it’s not just the actors, but screenwriter Theodore Melfi, who not only recently wrote and directed a Best Picture nominee, but also helmed the surprisingly heartwarming and delightful St. Vincent.
More pointedly though, as a wise man once said, “A bad comedy isn’t just bad, a bad comedy is miserable.” Going In Style only clocks in around ninety minutes (as most comedy films should), but it felt much longer, so it’s hard to determine exactly how long I felt angry, but I’m going to guess I spent roughly the first half-hour to forty-five minutes absolutely seething at what I was watching.
The biggest and most glaring problem is that you have a gaggle of amazing actors who you can obviously trust to play the comedy in a subtle and dry manner, but for some reason everything is played up as broadly as possible (including the music; ugh). Sure, comedy is subjective and my opinion is just one opinion, but, much like my experience with Sausage Party, I was in a packed theater with a willing audience, and there was not a whole lot of laughter going on, and if there was, it was in small pockets; nothing audience-wide.
Frankly though, these are just the high-level failures. I could nit-pick this movie to death if I really wanted to, but it’s not worth the effort. In fairness, I’ll say the third act, which involves the actual heist, is somewhat redeemable, but on the whole I can’t recommend Going In Style.
It’s a harsh criticism to dub a film an obvious studio cash-grab, and I genuinely don’t enjoy having to be negative, but, when you get the sense that you’re watching a product more so than any sort of artistic endeavor, there’s not much you can do.
I’m so sorry.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆