Play It to the Bone (1999)

Two best friends and former middleweight contenders travel to Las Vegas to fight each other for the first time.

Director:

Ron Shelton

Writer:

Ron Shelton

Stars:

Antonio Banderas, Woody Harrelson, Lolita Davidovich

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Antonio Banderas	...	Cesar Dominguez
Woody Harrelson	...	Vince Boudreau
Lolita Davidovich	...	Grace Pasic
Tom Sizemore	...	Joe Domino
Lucy Liu	...	Lia
Robert Wagner	...	Hank Goody
Richard Masur	...	Artie
Willie Garson	...	Cappie Caplan
Cylk Cozart	...	Rudy
Jack Carter	...	Dante Solomon
Aida Turturro	...	Mad Greek Waitress
Louie Leonardo	...	Freddy Green
Slade Barnett	...	Vegas Cop
Cameron Milzer	...	Vegas Paramedic
Julio García	...	Chiquito Rosario

Storyline

Two aging fighters in LA, friends, get a call from a Vegas promoter because his undercard fighters for a Mike Tyson bout that night are suddenly unavailable. He wants them to box each other. They agree as long as the winner gets a shot at the middleweight title. They enlist Grace, Cesar's current and Vinnie's ex girlfriend, to drive them to Vegas. On the trip, we see flashbacks to their previous title shots, their competitive friendship, and Grace's motivational wiles. (She has her own entrepreneurial dreams.) The fight itself is historic: ten rounds of savagery and courage. Who will win, who'll get the title shot, who gets Grace, and where will she find venture capital?

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Plot Keywords:

boxer | friendship | champagne | butterfly bandage | catfight | 

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Taglines:

No one hits as hard as your best friend.

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Sport

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for brutal ring violence, strong sexuality including dialogue, nudity, pervasive language and some drug content

Details

Official Sites:

Touchstone Pictures

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 January 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Play It

Filming Locations:

Baker, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$24,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$3,366 (USA) (24 December 1999)

Gross:

$8,427,204 (USA) (10 March 2000)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Play It Inc., Shanghai'd Films, Touchstone Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

124 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Woody Harrelson reportedly based his character on boxer Angel Manfredy.

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Goofs

When driving to Las Vegas, Grace is constantly driving the car over the double yellow line and across it as if she is being towed by the camera truck.

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Quotes

Cesar Dominguez: I am an atheist, thank God!

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Connections

References Rocky (1976)

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Soundtracks

"Corazone"
Traditional
Arranged by David Hidalgo, Louis Perez
Performed by Los Lobos

User Reviews

Good boxing, weak characters

‘Play It To The Bone' is really two movies. One is a movie about boxing and the other is a comedic character study of the boxers. As a boxing film it succeeds nicely. As a comedy it has its moments. As a character study it hits the canvas hard.

The storyline was sort of ‘Rocky' times two. Two washed up middleweight boxers Vince and Cesar (Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas), who are also best friends, get a last minute chance to fight in Las Vegas on the undercard of a Mike Tyson heavyweight bout when the two scheduled fighters are unable to fight. They are promised that the winner will get a chance to fight for the championship, but they have to be in Las Vegas tonight. The trouble is, they have to fight each other.

So they climb into a car with Cesar's girlfriend (and Vince's ex-girlfriend) Grace (Lolita Davidovich) and drive from L.A. to Las Vegas. Most of the rest of the movie is about the drive followed by the fight.

Director Ron Shelton has had quite a few sports oriented success stories to his credit (Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump and Tin Cup). The best part of the film was the boxing. The boxing was well choreographed and both actors were athletic and fought like real boxers. Shelton was also excellent at creating the feel of a boxing match. Anyone who has ever watched an HBO bout will recognize ring announcers Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and George Foreman. Mike Tyson made a cameo as well as numerous celebrity boxing fans (Kevin Costner, Rod Stewart, Wesley Snipes and a host of others). The makeup for the cuts and puffiness was also very realistic.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film was not as good as the fight. Shelton spends a good deal of time developing the characters, but it is all for naught because they have no substance. They are two hapless jocks, obvious mental lightweights, who spend most of the trip to Las Vegas fighting over Grace, cutting up and strutting around like peacocks. Shelton takes great pains to try to make us love these characters equally by making them equally pathetic. But that doesn't work because it leaves the audience without anyone to pull for in the fight. The ending is utterly predictable and the film whimpers off into the sunset with no more than a stagger.

Banderas and Harrelson both gave journeyman performances. They had good chemistry and some decent comedy between them, but there was nothing special here. The best performance by far was by Davidovich who transcended her normal sex kitten role and took command of the entire film with a character that was a flaming bitch on wheels. She was smart, tough sexy and manipulative and dominated every scene. Once again she shows that she is talented as well as attractive, which makes me wonder why she has never gotten more substantial roles.

This is a tough one to rate because it does some things very well and other things poorly. I gave it a 6/10. It had some good comedic moments, but not enough of them. It had some excellent boxing scenes, but a disappointing outcome. And the character study simply failed due to vacant characters. If you like boxing, Harrelson, Banderas or especially Davidovich, you will enjoy this film. Otherwise, enter at your own risk.