“The Comeback Trail” (*1/2 out of four) was a misfired Hollywood comedy about an over-the-hill director and his partner (Robert De Niro and Zach Braff) who owe money to the mob (led by Morris Dingman) and decide to hire a washed-up older actor (Tommy Lee Jones) to have him die as part of an insurance scam so they can recoup their money and pay back their debt but naturally things don’t go as planned. First-rate cast struggles to enliven this flimsy material; some scattershot chuckles but no big laughs. A real disappointment from writer/director George Gallo who in better days wrote the script for “Midnight Run” a much funnier action comedy that also starred De Niro. At this point, both of them could use a “comeback” of their own.