Thumpy old men Stallone and De Niro should throw in the towel

Stallone and De Niro are burning up what goodwill they have remaining for the sake of an easy payday.

Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro and Kevin Hart in a scene from Grudge Match.

GRUDGE MATCH (M)

Rating: 11/2 stars

Director: Peter Segal (Get Smart)

Starring: Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Kim Basinger, Alan Arkin

SLUMPED over there in the red corner is Robert De Niro, age 70. This wincing wisecracker once played the legendary real-life boxer Jake LaMotta to great acclaim in the Martin Scorsese-directed classic Raging Bull.

His opponent in the blue corner is the one, the only, Sylvester Stallone, age 67.

These days, he looks like an escapee from some weird government medical experiment.

He played the legendary fictional boxer Rocky Balboa a few hundred times.

In the third act of Grudge Match, these two freaky old fogies will be helped to their feet, and shall proceed to punch the heck out of each other.

Even with the aid of slick editing and subtle special effects, the ensuing spectacle makes for one of the most grotesque sights that will be projected on to a movie screen in 2014.

Before you make it there, however, some 90 or so minutes of mesmerisingly flat comedy must be navigated. While these punchlines pack no wallop whatsoever, your brain will feel as if it has been beaten to a pulp.

Stallone plays Henry "Razor" Sharp, a former light-heavyweight champ who never really got the better of his fiercest rival, De Niro's Billy "The Kid" McDonnen.

Both pugs are flabby shadows of their former fighting selves, but their longstanding feud - each winning a fight against the other in dubious circumstances - is the stuff of legend.

Did someone say rematch? Yes, they did. Will they take it back? I'm afraid they won't.

In the comedy implosion that follows, every last page of the old-men-behaving-badly text book is dutifully copied and slowly put into play. The film's 112-minute running time feels at least triple that of the pacy three hours gobbled up by The Wolf Of Wall Street.

Unnecessary subplots ("The Kid" getting to know the kid he never knew he had), love interests (hello, Kim Basinger!) and minor characters (Alan Arkin, please explain) should carry some of the blame.

But not all of it. Stallone and De Niro are burning up what goodwill they have remaining with their respective followings for the sake of an easy payday.