Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for sexual candor, profanity and sports-related violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.27.13
This film may not be as bad as
expected, but it still isn’t very good.
Grudge Match has the smell of a
breathless high-concept pitch, and you can hear the exclamation marks:
“Stallone and De Niro! As former rival boxers! Talked into one last bout!”
 |
| Razor (Sylvester Stallone, left) walked away from his boxing career years ago, a decision wholly supported by Sally (Kim Basinger), the former sweetheart trying to rekindle their relationship. Unfortunately, longtime rival Billy (Robert De Niro) refuses to accept this, and keeps trying to change Razor's mind ... via increasingly hostile behavior. |
At which point scripters Tim
Kelleher and Rodney Rothman tried to cobble up a narrative to suit this
premise. With bewildering results.
The completed film feels like it
wants to be a broad comedy, which would suit the sensibilities of director
Peter Segal, whose résumé includes exaggerated farces such as Nutty Professor
II: The Klumps, Anger Management and the ill-advised big-screen adaptation
of Get Smart. But despite the occasional comedy trappings, Kelleher and
Rothman keep flailing away at sincerity and schmaltz: real-world emotion that
Segal couldn’t deliver if he hired Federal Express.
The finished product is an uneven
mess. Every time we start to ease into one of the story’s heartfelt exchanges,
we’re yanked out of the moment by a clumsy, grating scene that seems to belong
to an entirely different movie. At which point the gentler pathos, no matter
how well delivered, feels contrived. And a cheat.
Sylvester Stallone does the
lion’s share of the heavy sentimental lifting, and he deserves credit for an
impressive job. His character has heart, and we genuinely feel for the guy;
he’s trying to play out the hand he dealt himself, with grace and dignity.
Stallone knows precisely how to maximize his morose, mopey expression, and —
surprise! — he quickly gets us in his corner.
De Niro, on the other hand, is inflated
to the extreme: a farcical, foaming-at-the-mouth caricature of a human being.
De Niro overplays to the last row of the second balcony, and Segal apparently
lacked the wit (or courage) to suggest that his star might tone it down a few
dozen notches. The result, then, is that De Niro tramps through every scene
like a rhinoceros in cleats, flattening any semblance of authentic emotion.
Which is ironic, since De Niro’s
character is given a lot of the baggage expected from contrived, feel-good
“dramedies” of this sort: A grown son he never knew! An adorable grandson he
can’t relate to! It’s all clumsy sitcom fodder, and no surprise there, since
Kelleher and Rothman cut their teeth as writers for Arsenio Hall and David
Letterman’s late-night chat shows, and later worked on TV comedies such as Two
and a Half Men and Undeclared.
Point being, these are not guys
who understand the finer elements of dramatic restraint. Or even gentle comedy.
