Legacy is the unsung hero of the sports feature. Time and time again, audiences see teams or individuals try themselves out on the toughest of occasions and nearly, or often manage, to meet their expectations. Underdog stories that poke at the heartstrings, unlikely heroes that can and will meet the odds that are heavily weighed against them. It was what made Rocky so endearing and Raging Bull so dramatic. Surely a blend of the pair would be a miraculous piece? Absolutely. What reason Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone had for working together on Grudge Match is unknowable. What is evident though, is that they did not do this to pit Rocky Balboa and Jake LaMotta against one another.
Somewhere within Grudge Match is the inherent 1990s machoism that steered Stallone to stardom. His ability to draw people to the box office not just through his own name but the rivalry with other stars of the time. But these stars are faded and scrappy, changed and weathered by years, even decades, away from the roles that made them a comfortable fit for the boxing feature. Seeing two elderly men stagger around the ring is not the equivalent of seeing them square off in their prime. In any case, Grudge Match is not a film that should have happened, past or present. But it does, and it drags Kevin Hart, Kim Basinger, Jon Bernthal and Alan Arkin along for a ride that hopes to make a mockery of other, better films.
Even at their worst, the Rocky films never stooped so low to cheap comedy and references that even the most passive of audiences can pick up on. All that’s missing here is a cameo from Burt Young and Talia Shire. The Italian Stallion and The Raging Bull square off against one another in a film that doesn’t pack a punch. But that much was obvious. Peter Segal’s directing efforts are an odd, box office anomaly that has somehow survived time and time again. His feature depends solely on the fact that its stars were part of boxing films that are still regarded as classics. Nothing more. He hopes to ebb away that stardom, to transfer it to his own feature film. It doesn’t work like that, and it is intensely worrying that this cast and crew may need reminding of that. Grudge Match is as flimsy and dull as to be expected of a film whose shining moment is a short handful of training montages.
Seeing two old fellas battle back against weak knees and big guts is a sombre moment not because it marks some interesting perspectives on the boxing genre, but because it tries to tackle ageism. It does so by showing why old people shouldn’t be primed and ready for the ring. It feeds off of an accident waiting to happen, and that it does. Should this truly be billed as Stallone vs. De Niro? Or Stallone and De Niro vs. the audience. It feels like a mesmerizingly horrid tag team that’ll put great actors into work and out the other end with nothing to show for it but feeble recreations of their finest hours. Stallone specifically had just come out the other end with a remarkable return to the fictional boxing legend that made him the actor he is today with Rocky Balboa, but nothing is sacred if the budget is big and the stars are bigger.
