Two warhorses beating a dead one.

Rating: 5/10 (26 December 2013)

What a perverse piece of garbage this nostalgic money grab is as two ancient entertainers dust off their pugilistic skills to be wheeled into the ring for the last time while a loyal audience from yesteryear slides into denial in the dark. Are John Travolta and Olivia Newton John waiting in the wings to reprise?
Former ring foes with no love lost for each other but strapped for cash get convinced by fast talking promoter Dante Slate (Kevin Hart)to simulate for an X-Box game. Time has not softened their stance towards each other and the two looking like Kermit the Frog decorated for Christmas club it out. The video goes viral and the interest sparks the long awaited third and final slug fest between Rocky Balboa and Jake LaMotta assuming the stage names of "Razor" Sharp (Sly Stallone) and Billy the Kid McDonnen (Bobby DeNiro).
More suited to play The Sunshine Boys than their ghosts of the past, Stallone and DeNiro trade barbs better than punches with the same streetwise, schoolyard bravado we baby boomers grew up on but it becomes stale, tiresome and downright embarrassing as these two multi millionaires with reputations intact scrounge for more with this wasted exercise. It is left up to Hart as the fast talking Slate to raise the level of energy while Alan Arkin, clearly having a better late career than either of these two washed up thespian pugs shares acting honors with Hart. From the outset of Grudge Match it is clear that these two warhorses are more suited for the glue factory than the ring.