Grudge Match is entirely reliant on the baggage of the two actors playing the lead roles. It works off the fact that Sylvester Stallone and Robert de Niro have played two of the most iconic movie boxers of all time: Rocky Balboa and Jake LaMotta, respectively. There are hints of something more interesting lurking in between all the jokey references to the actors’ pasts, but in the end, the film can do little more than wink knowingly at the audience as it makes fun of old people.
Back in the eighties, Henry “Razor” Sharp (Sylvester Stallone) and Billy “the Kid” McDonnen (Robert De Niro) were bitter boxing rivals. They each won one fight against each other. A third match was planned to settle the rivalry, but Sharp unexpectedly announced his retirement. Thirty years later, in present day, a video of the two sixtysomethings getting into a tussle while doing motion capture for a video game goes viral. Renewed interest in their rivalry brings them another opportunity to settle the score. As the two prepare for the fight, they are confronted with figures from their past, and they’re both forced to deal with unresolved issues.
The film opens with a clash of tones. The film seems to acknowledge that the boxers have ended up in a rather sad place, but it still plays all of it for laughs. McDonnen ends up almost exactly like LaMotta at the end of Raging Bull, but it isn’t made out to be tragic. It’s treated as a starting injoke reference in what will turn out to be a chain of them. Sharp’s old trainer is being thrown out of his retirement home, but the film downplays the difficulty of that situation by concentrating on his aversion of the male nurse giving him sponge baths.
Little of the goofiness is actually interesting. Is there much more to be gained from seeing an aging Sylvester Stallone drink a glass of eggs? Is it really worth making the joke of having him size up a side of beef at a meat plant? Much of this stuff was already covered in Rocky Balboa, which offered up the much more novel approach of taking everything seriously. The film offers traces of gravity in its side plots, which find the characters grappling with real regrets. But these scenes play second fiddle to the film’s insistence on being fluff.
A film doesn’t call for a lot from its two stars. It basically has them playing out very familiar personas: Stallone mumbles while De Niro jibes. It isn’t exactly the most strenuous work for either, but it works well enough. Stallone still exudes toughness after all these years. And while De Niro doesn’t look nearly enough in shape to actually stand up to his co-actor, he at least looks more energized than he usually does nowadays. Alan Arkin and Kevin Hart are brought in to deliver a bunch of zingers, but little else. The standout in this cast is Jon Bernthal, who manages to wring some real emotion out of all this silliness.
Grudge Match sometimes feels like it’s on the verge of something genuinely affecting, but it never quite gets there. There’s just too much baggage in the end, too much riding on the recognition of former roles. This movie is founded on the participation of these two actors, but this story might have been better off without them. If this was just two older actors with no previous boxer roles, the filmmakers might have actually been forced to get to the meat of the story. As it stands, Grudge Match is too determined to be cute. That only gets it so far.
My Rating:
—
Image used in home stream taken from official Warner Bros. Pictures (Philippines) Facebook page.
