Senior stars figure strongly in new films

DE NIRO and Stallone in “Grudge Match”

As veteran stars slide into their senior years, they keep looking for challenging and attention-calling projects that will make viewers feel that, despite their decades-long acting careers, they aren’t over the hill just yet—and that, in fact, the best is yet to come!

Robert De Niro is savvier and more proactive than most of his contemporaries in this regard. For his latest starrer, he’s chosen “Grudge Match,” a boxing comedy-drama that pits him against another actor associated with fisticuffs, Sylvester Stallone.

The movie’s title says it all: “Grudge Match” is about two inimical rivals in the ring who put their boxing gloves back on to settle an old score.

At first, Stallone of the “Rocky” film franchise would appear to have a clear advantage in the ring—but, hold your horses: In 1980, De Niro was already a star, with noteworthy films like “Mean Streets,” “Taxi Driver,” “New York, New York” and “The Deer Hunter” tucked into his belt, when he did “Raging Bull.” He portrayed champion boxer Jake LaMotta.

The film is celebrated as one of De Niro’s most unforgettable screen outings. He was so completely committed to making it a memorable and grittily convincing bio-drama, that he exercised for hours each day to build up the physique of a champion boxer. Then, to play LaMotta much older and in decline years later, he had to add 60 pounds!

He did it by eating a lot of carbohydrates and fats, which he hated—but the regimen, for the sake of his art, was amply rewarded with a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar in 1980.

Stallone is more into commercial filmmaking than arthouse cinema, but he has been creative in his own career choices in his senior years. Last year, he teamed up with another returning

BEN STILLER as Walter Mitty

senior action star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in “Escape Plan,” a prison drama that made viewers realize that the two were still bankable stars buff enough to pull off some stunts with sufficient brio and braggadocio.

That joint starrer didn’t exactly set the box office on fire. Will “Grudge Match” do better? Our bet is that it will in the long run, for the simple reason that De Niro is a much more inventive and exciting screen performer than the “Governator.”

Other mature talents

Aside from Stallone and De Niro, other “mature” stars are playing key roles in new films: Kevin Costner in “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” Keanu Reeves in “47 Ronin,” Jackie Chan in “Police Story 2013,” Eric Bana in “Lone Survivor,” Christian Bale in “American Hustle,” Russell Crowe in “Noah,” Tom Hanks in “Saving Mr. Banks,” Ben Stiller in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” Ralph Fiennes in “The Invisible Woman”—clearly, retirement is the last item on their wish list!