Going in Style (2017)

(Movie Review)

Why I Saw This Movie
The power was out at our house last night, so there was nothing to do--no lights to read by, no TV to watch, nothing.  So we went to the cinema.
This was pretty much the only thing playing at a convenient time.
I had seen the commercials, and thought the movie looked decent.  Plus it was starring Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Alan Arkin.  And how can you go wrong with Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Alan Arkin?

Positives
* The cast: Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Alan Arkin

* The performances: There's some sort of unwritten law that all great Hollywood actors have to star in a certain quota of awful films.  These guys must have been due for their awful film.  But to give credit where credit is due, they still manage to put in decent performances.  Alan Arkin is great as the constantly exasperated old guy.  Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are always class acts.  (Matt Dillion and Christopher Lloyd also put in great performances in their small parts.)

Negatives
* I suppose when just about every film out there is a genre film, it's a bit unfair to criticize this film for being a genre film.  But, just for the record, it's a classic paint-by-numbers "Heist Film".  If you've seen any Heist Film ever in your life, you know exactly where this movie is going.

* It's so boring.

* It's not funny.

* There is so little plot in this movie.  It's basically 15 minutes of plot painfully stretched out over 90 minutes.

* The movie just wouldn't end.  And it didn't know where its climax was.  (The movie was kind of building up to something up until the bank robbery, but then after the bank robbery the story had no forward momentum at all, and yet it still went on for another 40 minutes or so, and I wondered why in the world I was still watching it.)

* Just about every cliche in the book--the montage scenes preparing for the bank robbery, the transition scenes in which pop music is played over random shots of the city, et cetera.

* Just dripping with sappy sentimentality

* So what was up with that little girl?  She showed such lack of awareness of how the world works during the bank robbery, but suddenly became so savvy during the police line-up scene.

* That scene when the security guard is chasing them was so poorly choreographed and directed it was ridiculous.  With the speed at which she was running, she would have caught them easily.

The Review
Hollywood cranks out a certain amount of movies every year that exist for no other reason than to try to make a quick buck.  Movies with no original storyline, which are just a string of cliches on top of each other.  This is one of them.  If it is not one of the worst movies I've ever, it was definitely one of the most boring.
The writing and directing in this movie are awful, and it was obvious no one cared about the making of this movie.
Which makes it somewhat surprising that the actors did such a good job.  But then, what do you expeect from Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Alan Arkin?  These guys never turn in a bad performance.

Rating :
1 out of 10 Stars

Links
My usual go to sources for reviews are uproxx.com and the avclub.com.  Their reviews are HERE and HERE respectively.
I'm largely in agreement with their criticisms of this film, but surprisingly both reviewers are reluctant to criticize this film too harshly for the same reason--there are so many worse movies out there, so the bar is set very low.
I suppose being a professional film critic must make you very jaded.
Okay, so point taken.  The film could have been a lot worse.  It wasn't offensive or particularly in bad taste.
But it was just very, very boring.

Video Review
Video review here and embedded below.



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