Bringing them to that room is Dante Slate Jr. (Kevin Hart), son of the Don King-like boxing promoter who handled Razor vs. Kid I and II. Junior is promoting a boxing video game featuring both fighters, and offers Razor $1000 to record his voice and movements for the game. Razor agrees only if he can be scheduled at a different time than The Kid. The Kid has other ideas, showing up during Razor's recording session and causing an equipment-destroying fight. The footage goes viral, and suddenly there's a demand to see these two duke it out in the ring.
The two agree to do it, but for different reasons. Razor needs money so he can pay the retirement home rent of his old trainer "Lightning" (Alan Arkin), whom he springs once the fight has been announced. The Kid's motivation is simple revenge; he wants to pummel Razor to settle the decades old question of who's better. The Kid's heart is in it far more than Razor's, especially after Sally (Basinger) returns to town to see him. Sally was Razor's true love back in the day. She's also the mother of B.J. (Jon Bernthal), who happens to be The Kid's kid. This melodramatic development feels unnecessary, but it does allow Basinger and Stallone to remind us they can act. As in "Cop Land," the first Stallone-De Niro collaboration, Stallone acts rings around De Niro. As was the case in the dreadful "Last Vegas," De Niro spends way too much time in a whiny pity spiral that does him no favors.
Casting Kevin Hart was a great marketing idea. He'll pull in yet another generation of viewers. His verbal sparring matches with Arkin are prominently displayed in the ads, and while they're amusing, there is far less Kevin Hart than you're being led to believe. Hart brings a smarmy, Daffy Duck-like sense of hapless greed to his role, which nicely complements the curmudgeonly wisecrack-filled persona Arkin can play in his sleep. It's too bad we only get about 15 minutes of him.
When the climactic fight arrives, I found myself without a side to choose, because "Grudge Match" is too timid to ask me to commit to either boxer. Director Peter Segal shoots the match well, but even with the late reveal of one fighter's major disadvantage in the ring, I remained apathetic. I'll give credit to the film for picking a definitive winner, even if the match made the boxing associations of Nevada and New Jersey look like boy scouts compared to the one in Pennsylvania. They sanction a lawsuit and/or a murder waiting to happen.
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