You can afford to miss this if you aren’t a fan of either of the actors or a fan of boxing. As a long-time Stallone fan, I choose to excuse myself from this wreck because I cannot stand to see a performer I admire so much do something like this. If you must watch it, do it for Alan Arkin, who plays Stallone’s trainer, Lightning. He’s the only one who seems to have put any kind of effort into it.

Watch it without much expectation, and you won’t hold a grudge against this match.

The only reason you might want to watch the film is because of the two lead actors. And if you do, make sure you stay till the end credits roll, the best part of the film, a cameo, is during the credits.

Today, De Niro is 70 and Stallone 67 – both fit and agile. They seem to be banking on their past laurels and hence have not put in much effort to emote. Considering their pervious performance as boxers, this one does not even qualify for Oscar nominations, but nevertheless they are persuasive and convincing.

Getting into plot details is futile because the ‘story’ is just a patchwork of ideas from the loony bin of Hollywood just to get De Niro and Stallone in the same frame together. Everything the film attempts is obscenely hollow and half assed. The film is quite cringe-inducing in the ‘dramatic’ moments because you know the filmmaker is laughing as the camera rolls.

More humour than hurt in this match up. Wait for the post credits sequences to get perhaps the best laughs of the movie and that might just about make the movie worth the price of the admission. 