A comedy about senior citizens for younger viewers? That’s what Going in Style becomes in the hands of the skillful director Martin Brest.
Joe (George Burns), Al (Art Carney), and Willie (Lee Strasberg) are three senior citizens who share a small apartment in New York City.
They live off social security checks and spend their days sitting on a park bench, reading newspapers, feeding pigeons, fending off obnoxious children—and getting bored.
Their life is so dull life that Joe suggests a radical idea to break the monotony: Why not go on a stick up?
None has a criminal history, (though Joe claims he “did some stealing during the war.”) Just planning the bank robbery energizes the three amigos.
Al borrows some pistols from the collection of his nephew, Pete (Charles Hallahan), and the trio, disguised with Groucho Marx-style glasses, pulls off their heist of $35,000.
But the excitement proves too much for Willie, who suffers a fatal heart attack the same day. At his funeral, Joe and Al give the bulk of the dough to Pete and his family, and attempt to blow the rest of it on a whirlwind excursion to Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, the robbery has become a colorful news story and police begin to close in on the amateur criminals.
MPAA: PG.
Running time: 90 minutes.
Directed by Martin Brest
DVD: March 30, 2004