‘I’m Not Rappaport’

Playwright Herb Gardner claims to have happened onto two old men, one black, one white, arguing on a park bench in Central Park and was so fascinated by the questions and answers that popped into his head that he dropped everything else to write his hit Broadway comedy “I’m Not Rappaport,” which become a 1996 movie, adapted and directed by Gardner himself, co-starring wily veterans Walter Matthau, left, and Ossie Davis. Although it loses something in the transition, it’s a gem. Matthau’s Nat and Davis’ Midge spend large parts of their days in Central Park because it’s there, and they have nothing better to do. Both are 81, reasonably healthy and mentally alert, and wrestling with the overwhelming notion that their lives have become disposable. So, Nat and Midge use each other as wobbly props, finding through their give-and-take some stimulation, through their grudging affection some purpose and through a series of dramatic events a sense of brotherhood (Cinemax Friday at 8 p.m.).