Going in Style

Three friends who are living on the dole decide to organize a bank robbery.

• Director: Martin Brest
• Genre:Comedy / Drama
• Runtime:98 minutes

Cast

George Burns : Joe
Art Carney : Al
Lee Strasberg : Willie
Charles Hallahan : Pete
Pamela Payton-Wright : Kathy

Joe (George Burns), Al (Art Carney), and Willie (Lee Strasberg) are three senior citizens who share a small apartment in New York City. They live off social security checks and spend their days sitting on a park bench, reading newspapers, feeding pigeons, and fending off obnoxious children. It is a dull life, and finally Joe is driven to suggest something radical to break the monotony: why not go on a stick up? None of them have a criminal history (though Joe claims he “did some stealing during the war”), but just planning the bank robbery fills them with optimism. Al surreptitiously borrows some pistols from the collection of his nephew, Pete (Charles Hallahan), and the trio, disguised with novelty Groucho Marx-style glasses, pulls off their heist to the tune of USD$35,000 dollars.

Unfortunately, the excitement is too much for Willie, who suffers a fatal heart attack the same day. At his funeral, Joe and Al decide to give the bulk of the money to Pete and his family, and attempt to blow the rest of it on a whirlwind excursion to Las Vegas. Meanwhile, the eccentric robbery has become a colorful news story for the media and the police are closing in on the amateur criminals. The night after their return from Vegas, Al dies in his sleep, leaving Joe by himself. On his way to Al’s funeral, Joe is arrested. When Al’s nephew Pete arrives to visit Joe in prison, he asks Pete not to bother. Joe explains that he gets three square meals a day, and generally is getting “treated like a king around here.” The movie ends as Joe is being escorted back to his cell post-visit. Just before he leaves, he looks mischievously at Pete and says, “Besides, no tin-horn joint like this could ever hold me!” Read more