Play it to the Bone

Writer/Director Ron Shelton (Tin Cup, Bull Durham, Cobb, etc.) shovels us another sports movie, but this time it's about boxing. While not at all a good movie, Play it to the Bone has a few amusing moments crammed between a few hours of predictable dreck.This is the story of two aging boxing buddies (Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas) who are hired to fight as the under card for a Tyson Fight in Las Vegas, with six hours notice. They get drive from LA with the director's wife, Lolita Dovidavitch, arrive in Vegas, beat each other up. That's it. There's no suspense, not even in terms of who wins the fight. Nothing about the action or characters make you care for a second who wins. If Ron had it in him just to cut the movie down to the good parts, he could have pulled off a much better movie in a minute thirty. When Antonio just finishes telling his heart story about getting his ass kicked in Madison Square Garden, he mentions off hand that his opponent had been a "fag." Then he says "After Valerios knocked me out, I was a fag for a while." Since this was not totally predictable, it played fairly well, as if acted by human beings.

Woody Harrelson was actually very good in White Men Can't Jump, another Shelton vehicle. In that movie, he acted, had presence, worked at it. In this movie, it was as if Shelton held up cue cards reading "Horny," "Pious," or "Sad," and he responded about that deeply. If you might be interested in seeing the stars beating each other really bloody, and then showering together, Play it to the Bone is the boxing/buddy/road picture for you. If not, pass.