This is a reboot of the 1979 movie directed by Martin Brest, featuring George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg.
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Although equal in star power with Oscar winners Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin, it does have a lot to live up to.
The trio team up as lifelong buddies Willie, Joe and Al, who are living social security check to check. The BFFs are even reduced to eating dog food at times, and finally decide they have had enough.
Their tipping point is when their pension fund becomes a corporate casualty.
They are desperate to pay the bills and come through for their loved ones, and so decide to risk it all by embarking on a daring bid to knock off the Williamsburg Savings Bank the very bank that absconded with their money.
The Brooklyn codgers buck retirement and step off the straight-and-narrow for the first time. As the plan is discussed, and then hatched, we see the home life of each of these guys, along with their interactions.
They work out a meticulous alibi, mingling with friends during a charity carnival and slipping away just long enough to execute the robbery.
There are times when this American heist comedy film directed by Zach Braff and written by Theodore Melfi hints at the darkness of a world that ignores seniors by making them invisible.
But this new version sells uplift so hard it loses touch with reality – and any genuine reason for being.