BEFORE: Of course, the joy and relief of a snow day soon gets tempered with the aggravation of shoveling snow. I was raised in Massachusetts, and I still recall the Blizzard of '78, so I know how to shovel - you stack the snow on your own property, never shovel it on to someone else's lawn or driveway, and never shovel it into the street, because the first priority is to keep the roads clear. But people in New York City are weird, if my block is any indication. The people on the other side of the street (which happens to be the sunnier side, where snow melts faster) have this attitude where they have to get rid of it from their property at all costs, like it's toxic or something. So they shovel it into the street, which is both illegal and dangerous - after all, the plow just got done getting the snow OUT of the street, and the homeowners take this as an invitation to ditch their snow somewhere, which is dirty pool. And the plow is supposed to alternate sides each year, but of course it doesn't - so the last 7 or 8 years, it's always pushed the snow to the right side, which is our side of the street. So all the snow that my neighbors dump into the street gets plowed to where it blocks our driveway - essentially, we have to shovel at least twice, once to connect our driveway to the street, and then again to clean up the neighbor's snow that gets plowed there. Frankly, I'm sick of it.
So I approach the neighbors who shovel into the street and plead my case, explaining that what they're doing is wrong and un-neighborly, and sometimes they listen and sometimes they don't. Yesterday the people across the street seemed like they understood and agreed to comply, but then we saw them shoveling into the street again later in the day. Look, I understand you want the cars to run over the snow and melt it, and this seems to work OK in Manhattan, but not in residential Queens, and especially not when the temperature's not going to rise above freezing for the next few days. So all they're doing is moving snow to where it will freeze in the street, creating icy road conditions for all traffic. So I bolted across the street last night in a blind rage, and started shoveling snow from the street back into their driveway - and they did not take this well. They called me all kind of names and threatened to call the police (they didn't) but still, I believe I made my point. I never got personal or called them any names, just pointed out that there's a proper way to do this, and they weren't doing it right.
I have a feeling that this is how I will die someday, in an altercation over the proper shoveling of snow - I'll either get a snow shovel buried in my cranium or I'll be so mad when crossing the street that I won't check for oncoming traffic, and get creamed by a UPS truck or something.
Michael Caine carries over from "Youth", and if Hollywood wants to keep pairing big stars together like this, there's hope that I can keep my chain going for a good long time.
THE PLOT: Desperate to pay the bills and come through for their loved ones, three lifelong pals risk it all in a daring bid to knock off the very bank that absconded with their money.
AFTER: This is a rather charming film, of course, what else would you expect when you put Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman together, both known for their charm, along with Alan Arkin, who's made his own niche in the past few years by playing charming cranky old men. So you want to root for these guys, even if they're planning a bad thing, namely a bank robbery.
So the plot has to sort of bend over backwards to make the bad thing OK - this bank is foreclosing on one character's house, PLUS the bank is taking over the pension fund that these three guys worked so hard to build up over their careers, but the fund's not paying out because the company is moving operations overseas - no U.S. employees means no responsibility to pay them. I feel like there are probably 3 NITPICK POINTS and a big contrivance in there somewhere. Like, a pension fund still has to pay the people who paid into the system, even if the company moves, right? There should have at least been a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of the workers, or a scrappy news reporter there to do a story on this corporate malfeasance.
I'm surprised to find out that a "teaser rate" on a mortgage is a real thing - I was willing to bet that was something that a screenwriter made up. But no, that's real, although I don't see how the increase of a mortgage rate means that someone automatically loses their home, it's just a higher rate of interest - how come he was he making the payments before at the lower rate, but he suddenly has no money when it's time to make the payments with interest? And it's easy to focus on a bank as the "bad guy" here, with the financial scandals and the sub-prime mortgages and such. God forbid they show someone losing their house due to a reverse mortgage, which I think is much more likely than the "I can't seem to pay the interest rate" scenario shown here.
Either way, there are at least a half-dozen reasonable solutions to this problem before "Hey, let's rob a bank" becomes the best viable option. Doesn't his daughter work as a nurse? Maybe she can make a few mortgage payments while the pension lawsuit thing gets straightened out, I'm just sayin'. But why am I now doing the screenwriter's job for him, in pointing out these story problems?
Anyway, it's also a massive contrivance that Joe (Michael Caine's character) happened to be in this bank the last time it was robbed. And that he gets interviewed by the same FBI guy after both robberies. This whole film is a big bunch of contrivances and shortcuts, it seems. Even when the guys decide to rob a grocery store (you know, to "work up" to bank robbery) it just happens to be a grocery where the love interest for the third guy works. And the third guy just happens to get seen on the security camera, which is important later, and so on, and so on.
But it's also still a whole lot of fun. You want to root for these guys as they plan their heist (around their busy schedules of going to the bathroom, because it's seems that's all that Hollywood thinks old people do all day...) and get themselves into "fighting shape" (at least for three 70-year olds), practice with firearms, etc.
I recognized a lot of local Brooklyn + Queens landmarks, like the Clinton Hill Diner, which is now known locally as the "Goodfellas Diner". It did appear in the movie "Goodfellas", but it wasn't the diner with the neon sign that said "Airline Diner", that was a Jackson Hole burger place near LaGuardia, which looks a lot like a classic diner inside. And I noticed that at one point Michael Caine's character walked by the sign for Alfie's Pizza in Richmond Hill, I bet that was a reference to his early movie "Alfie".
My theme is still solid, even if the plot here is a bit shaky, the message is clear - young or old, you've got to rise up and face your fears, develop new skills, try something new and challenge yourself in the New Year. And I've been reminded by this film that I only fulfilled 4 of the 5 New Year's resolutions that I made last January - I never got around to figuring out my 401K account or investigating whether it can be turned into a retirement account with some additional contributions from me. So seeing as I'm turning 50 later this year, I should probably look into that.
Also starring Morgan Freeman (last seen in "Now You See Me 2"), Alan Arkin (last seen in "Catch-22"), Ann-Margret (last seen in "52 Pick-Up"), Peter Serafinowicz (last heard in "Sing"), Maria Dizzia (last seen in "True Story"), Joey King (last seen in "Independence Day: Resurgence"), Matt Dillon (last seen in "The Art of the Steal"), Kenan Thompson (last heard in "The Smurfs 2"), Christopher Lloyd (last seen in "Back in Time"), Siobhan Fallon Hogan (last seen in "Boiler Room"), John Ortiz (last seen in "Steve Jobs"), Josh Pais (last seen in "Rounders"), Anthony Chisholm (last seen in "Premium Rush"), Richie Moriarty, Seth Barrish, Jeremy Bobb, Gillian Glasco, Ashley Aufderheide, Jeremy Shinder, Annabelle Chow.
RATING: 6 out of 10 duffel bags
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