In cinemas April 29th!
Part of a style of comedy essentially defined as “people doing things you wouldn’t really expect them to be doing”. Like children swearing or the entire premise of 'The Last of the Summer Wine', which is a little closer to this move. It’s a simple enough gag and the movie embraces it but I’m not sure it has much else to offer beyond an interesting premise.
Said premise revolves around Arthur (Bernard Hill), his wife Martha (Virginia McKenna) and their friends who are all retired seniors who spend their days in the local bowls club commiserating medical expenses and slowly learning that they’re all being screwed over by their various pension funds. Being pushed towards poverty by what he sees as the crooked banks Arthur hatches a half-baked plan to steal a lock box from an armoured car. When by sheer dumb luck the plan sort of works it sets off a chain of events that escalates into a growing crime spree of comedic proportions.
Said premise revolves around Arthur (Bernard Hill), his wife Martha (Virginia McKenna) and their friends who are all retired seniors who spend their days in the local bowls club commiserating medical expenses and slowly learning that they’re all being screwed over by their various pension funds. Being pushed towards poverty by what he sees as the crooked banks Arthur hatches a half-baked plan to steal a lock box from an armoured car. When by sheer dumb luck the plan sort of works it sets off a chain of events that escalates into a growing crime spree of comedic proportions.
Unfortunately as I eluded to in my first paragraph the film doesn’t have a lot more going for it beyond the overarching joke of “old people take up bank robbing”. The complexities of the plot are undeveloped, largely explained away but the characters themselves not really understanding them, and the final caper doesn’t fully make sense when you stop to think about it.
We feel enough for the pensioners that we want them to succeed but a young flash detective, full of himself and obsessively spray tanned who is set about to pursue them never extends beyond his two dimensions and works largely as a plot device, which is a shame as the film lacks a proper villain beyond the banks, not that we don’t all hate the banks, so the tension is pretty low overall.
The script lacks a comedic eye, the direction lack artistry and to be blunt it’s pretty boring to look at, but despite all this the film does manage to be entertaining through to the slightly anti-climactic finale that probably looked more exciting on paper than it does in camera, and whilst easily forgettable as a whole there’s a few good laughs and our heroes are sympathetic.
We feel enough for the pensioners that we want them to succeed but a young flash detective, full of himself and obsessively spray tanned who is set about to pursue them never extends beyond his two dimensions and works largely as a plot device, which is a shame as the film lacks a proper villain beyond the banks, not that we don’t all hate the banks, so the tension is pretty low overall.
The script lacks a comedic eye, the direction lack artistry and to be blunt it’s pretty boring to look at, but despite all this the film does manage to be entertaining through to the slightly anti-climactic finale that probably looked more exciting on paper than it does in camera, and whilst easily forgettable as a whole there’s a few good laughs and our heroes are sympathetic.
On the whole the film feels much too tame with no real standout moments and perhaps ironically a more mature approach might have been better. If you’re in the mood for a light British comedy you can do a lot worse but this is a little too tepid to be a classic of the genre.
Review by Kristian Mitchell-Dolby.
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