GRUDGE MATCH

2013 / Director. Peter Segal.
Review by Glenn Cochrane.

GRUDGE MATCH was made for one reason and one reason alone... the poster! I can imagine a board room full of executives brain storming ideas for a movie and one of them rising to his feet in a moment of self-deprecating inspiration, declaring "Picture this! Rocky Balboa VS Jake LaMotta". The board room erupts into jubilation and the sound of cash-registers chiming fills their bloated heads. That is all that GRUDGE MATCH is. Sylvester Stallone and Robert DeNiro play two aged former boxers who never got the grudge match they wanted 30 years ago. With a young and eager promoter desperate to lure them back into the ring for an exhibition match, they two old geezers take on the challenge and put themselves through a rigorous training regime. I really didn't like the movie at all and often wondered why I was still watching. It was nothing more than a one-joke movie with constant references to ROCKY and RAGING BULL that were supposed to be amusing but came across as tragic. Raw eggs... yeah we get it. Punching cow carcasses... ah huh, we know. Stallone and DeNiro do their best with the material but it was doomed from the start. What the movie did have going for it was a fairly decent final act with some good fight sequences and the abandonment of comedy. It also features a rewarding post-credits gag and almost feels like a conso Will I ever watch GRUDGE MATCH again? Absolutely not. 

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