The light and frothy heist caper has been a staple of cinema for decades, and the premise is so malleable that there are any number of spins that can be put on the standard setup. All you need is an ensemble cast seeking a big score, and you’re free to do whatever you want with the rest of the story.
In the case of Going in Style, director Zach Braff decided to round up a trio of Hollywood legends and reinvent them as an unlikely band of aging criminals. Academy Award winners Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin discover that corporate greed has robbed them of their pension funds, so they decided to take matters into their own hands.
Casting the idea of retirement to one side, they risk it all by cobbling together an ambitious and daring plot to rob the very same bank that took their life savings in the first place. From that logline alone you can guess almost exactly where Going in Style is headed, but that doesn’t mean the journey isn’t fun.
It’s not the most original or inventive crime comedy you’ll ever see, but the three leads have chemistry and charisma to spare, with their dynamic offsetting the regular detours into formula. It’s easy and undemanding viewing, which might go some way to explaining why Going in Style currently ranks as the third most-watched title on Netflix among subscribers in the United States, as per FlixPatrol.
