Tony Mastroianni Review Collection
Going in Style
Cleveland Press December 27, 1979
I don't know who has been exploited more with the this movie, the cast or the audience.
The talent of the three actors is wasted. It's the only talent in sight in a movie poorly written, sloppily directed and badly edited.
It has been promoted as a comedy but audiences will find the laughs few and far between. George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg do all they can to make this work and what little good there is in the movie is due to them. It is obvious all the way through that they are working for a lost cause.
The three portray old men who are bored with sitting on a park bench all day long. Out of their boredom they decide to rob a bank. As Burns argues, what can they lose?
If they make it they're rolling in money. If they don't they'll get three years in jail, free room and a board while their social security checks accumulate.
What little humor there is in the film is due to the incongruity of three golden agers trying to be desperadoes.
It is a movie that never makes up its mind what it is -- comedy, drama or soap opera.
The three principles are good, very good. Too bad they didn't have something better to work with.
