cult film freak: OLD VERSES THE BRAND NEW METHOD FOR 'GOING IN STYLE'

Karen Montgomery says bye to Art Carney in 19 79 version

For a website covering new movies while being all about old and semi old classics, the difference between two eras of filmmaking and/or storytelling can be summed up pretty quick and fairly easy, right here and now, with a single motion picture that's been remade...

The Martin Brest 1979 laidback comedy caper GOING IN STYLE starred two celebrity icons, George Burns and Art Carney, as well as acting guru Lee Strasberg (Hyman Roth from THE GODFATHER II), and centered on three old-timers who rob a bank: In movies back then, protagonists didn't need a reason to be angry about society in order to pull off a heist since, at the end of the 1970's Renaissance, while films were becoming less independent and more mainstream, so this movie combined both with a story catered to an audiences and a plotline and structure that only meant something for the characters within... The polar opposite of the GOING IN STYLE remake from 2017.

God with Ed Norton and Hyman Roth via 1979

You just can't sell a movie without a reason and you can't have a reason without the same old timeworn cliche: Big evil corporation screwing around the Little Guy; the place where Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin worked, for most of their lives, and that basically stole their pensions, so they rob a bank... The same bank with a snooty loan officer that Caine butted heads with during the prologue...

So here, the robbery isn't only caused by mostly unseen villains but teaches the token jerk "bully" a lesson... These contrived devices had nothing to do with the original. It was for money, sure, the boys had only enough to exist on: But knocking off the bank was simply a break from their boring routine of watching children and pigeons, while the rest of the film centered on an ambiguous life lesson of having fun before you die...

Matt Dillon questions Michael Caine in the new Going In Style

And while the reboot is all about the bank robbery, it's still far more important in the original given how much time's centered on the last man standing after that pivotal heist with George Burns facing the repercussions, which include a lightweight yet palpable amount of suspense: although the FBI is a mere afterthought in the original while now, Matt Dillon is a reoccurring character in the remake, a square-jawed cop on the trio's trail like any crime-based film, humorous or otherwise...

Also in the remake, Michael Caine, with a phoned in performance and looking his age which he hasn't looked since he got genuinely old, is the same guy he was before the score and his buddies are pantomime clones, all spouting the usual dialogue, repeated like a mantra about not having enough money, again and again in case we missed it... And we never will since today's cinema needs a reason behind the reason while in the good old days, character-driven vehicles that seemed to go nowhere had a more worthwhile destination than when the writer and director spoon-feeds plot and pathos to their audience.