We enjoyed this geezer caper comedy, wherein three senior men decide to rob the bank that has cut off their pensions. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Arkin (the first two were last blogged for Now You See Me 2 and the latter for Million Dollar Arm and their ages are 84, almost 80, and 83 respectively) are supremely capable of updating the roles held by George Burns, Lee Strasberg, and Art Carney in the 1979 version, which I don't remember if I saw. Apparently the original had no love interest but this one does, in the form of Ann-Margret (Oscar nominated for Carnal Knowledge (1971) and Tommy (1975), I remember liking her in Bye Bye Birdie (1963), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Grumpy Old Men (1993), and Any Given Sunday (1999)), who at 76 is more age appropriate here than she was in Grumpy Old Men, when she was twenty years younger than Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
The cast is big, including young Joey King (most recently in these pages for Oz the Great and Powerful) as Caine's granddaughter, character actor Josh Pais (always supporting, rarely a star) as the bank clerk, John Ortiz (after seeing him in Jack Goes Boating I also liked him in Silver Linings Playbook, 13 episodes of the now-cancelled Rake, and seven of Togetherness) as the robbery coach, and Matt Dillon (profiled in Girl Most Likely) as the detective.
This is the third feature directed by Zach Braff (I loved Garden State (2004) and didn't see the second one), who acted in Oz the Great and Powerful with King. The script is by Theodore Melfi (Oscar-nominated for co-writing Hidden Figures).
Composer Rob Simonsen (just did Gifted) provides music with urgency for the caper bits, and you can stream several tracks starting from this link, though there isn't a clear playlist so you'll have to go to the previous page each time.
We saw this about two weeks ago and it's doing pretty well at the box office, despite the Rotten Tomatoes critics' 45% and its audiences 62. Just a cute comedy to pass the time.
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