Grudge Match (2013) 7/10

Starring : Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Kim Basinger, Kevin Hart, Alan Arkin
Director : Peter Segal
Running Time : 114 mins

Henry ‘Razor’ Sharp (Stallone) and Billy ‘The Kid’ McDonnen (De Niro) were boxing rivals who never go to fight their deciding match, due to Sharp deciding to retire. Thirty years later, while working on a computer game, the two get into a spat and the video goes viral, prompting promoter Dante Slate (Hart) to ask them to stage one final deciding match. The question is, does the public care who wins a fight between two sixty year old men?

This light-hearted drama that combines Rocky with Raging Bull manages to combine humour and drama in a pretty clever way. The overall humorous arc of two ageing fighters coming back to prove their worth is aptly twinned with the plots concerning their personal lives and how they’ve managed them over the years. De Niro is pretty good in this, but Stallone feels too serious for what is basically a comedy, and it would have been nice if he had a few more laughs in this.

You’ll like this if you liked : Rocky Balboa