GOING IN STYLE —I’m old enough to have seen it and sufficiently Senior-Momentic to have forgotten what it may be, but if this 1979 agate isn’t the first movie about elders having a last hurrah, it’s certainly one of the best, thanks not only to the perfect casting but to some savvy written & directed choices to not make it so “cute” that it curdles. *
“Crying and pissing in your pants like a 3-month old baby. Well, I guess the whole goddamned cycle is complete now.”
Queens, NY. ‘Joe’ (George Burns), ‘Al’ (Art Carney) and ‘Willie’ (Lee Strasberg) share a frumpy apartment and days of boredom watching the heedless young rush around in vapid, noisy monotony. Joe sizes up what’s left, what’s missing and what’s possible and convinces his pals to join him sticking up a bank. Their clumsy but surprising stunt works, but with euphoria comes a toll.
Written & directed by Martin Brest, its lean 97 minutes are quite amusing, the wry asides deftly funny without being outrageously obvious, and the requisite sad passages likewise done with taste and restraint. Burns was 83 and full of juice, Strasberg 78 and wary (his scene about his son is aced), while Carney is a relative young’un at 61, also in extra fine fettle. The byplay between Burns and Carney is especially good, and there’s an excellent supporting performance from Charles Hallahan as Burns kindly nephew.
Famed acting coach Strasberg only made 10 film appearances, this his next-to-last (he died in 1982). Carney’s long career saw most of his film work come after winning an Oscar in ’74 for Harry And Tonto–-I actually think he’s better here. Burns had been around forever but his movie career, started in 1932, had been on hold for 35 years before he also copped an Academy Award supporting The Sunshine Boys and then scored a big hit in Oh,God (aim high), but this charming, touching and low-key item offers his best work. The guy’s timing could not be bettered.
Well reviewed, stealing in to #34 for ’79, the wily old pros cleaning up for $26,900,000. Remade in 2017.
* While this is a good one, many of these Aren’t-Old-People-Cute-When-They-Act-Young concepts should stay at the Beverly Hills poolside “meetings” where they’re spawned by lazy pups with faux sensitivity to ageism and a decided lack of creative grace. Considering the present headlong trajectory of Dumbkind into the history bin it’s likely they won’t be here long enough to get gray hair. The great big unfunny that joke that everyone will ‘get’.
