Play It to the Bone (1999)

Sorry, this movie sucks

As Good As It Gets

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

While working out in a Los Angeles gym, nearly washed-up boxer pals Antonio Banderas (as Cesar Dominguez) and Woody Harrelson (as Vince Boudreau) receive an invitation. They are offered a bout in Las Vegas for $50,000 each, with the winner getting to fight for the middleweight crown. The men get entrepreneurial Lolita Davidovich (as Grace Pasic) to head out for Vegas, in her bright green Oldsmobile. She appears to be interested in both men, although Mr. Banderas plays both sides of the ring and Mr. Harrelson likes picking up young skanks. The trio drive to Vegas so the men can fight and Ms. Davidovich can peddle her "bed periscope" and "athlete's foot sock" inventions to Las Vegas promoters. Insatiable and arrogant 20-year-old Lucy Liu (as Lia) joins the group at a diner. Several celebrities have cameos...Writer-director Ron Shelton has a competently made, but uninteresting story to tell. The three main characters are supposed to have close relationships, but really only occupy the same screen...The men attempt to demonstrate a camaraderie, but are still eager to beat each other savagely. If the fight is supposed to be a substitute for sex, it's unsuccessful. The opening minutes suggest the theme of sexual threesomes, but it's never explored beyond the two depictions of wealthy men having two suggestively Lesbian super-models as bed partners. Banderas' character is apparently bisexual and Harrelson's a born-again Christian, but neither characteristic is convincing; possibly, these traits are given to get the men in a fighting mood. The big boxing match does make sense, scoring-wise. We learn that boxers hallucinate when the going gets ugly. Davidovich starts off encouraging, but has limited appeal. By the way, the best punch is thrown by Davidovich. And her bout with Robert Wagner isn't bad, either.*** Play It to the Bone (1999-12-25) Ron Shelton ~ Woody Harrelson, Antonio Banderas, Lolita Davidovich, Lucy Liu

I see on my screen a cast that lends me to think, "Hey I bet this movie will be good. I enjoy all these actors." Alas, I was deceived. The dialog was dull and sounded oh to familiar. Very reminiscent of every late 90's flick. The acted was ridiculous... especially considering who was cast. Then, we come to the big fight at the end... it started out very cool; the actors were well trained for sure. The actors abilities, however, were ruined by the cameraman and/or the director. Cheesiest production ever of a fight scene. The angles and scene cuts looked like something from our local TV. Sad. Way to ruin an amazing and redeeming quality of the movie. Not to mention the fight went on FOREVER. Several times one of them would go down and people in the crowd are yelling "stay down" and you want them too as well, because seriously it is just too long. There are literally 2 main sets for this movie, the car on the road and the fighting ring.

Now, there are fun bad movies, and there are bad bad movies. Play It to the Bone falls so deeply and terribly into the latter category, I cannot implore you enough to never, ever consider seeing it. Take this as a public service announcement. Play It to the Bone is quite simply the worst movie I have ever seen. There is nothing campy or redeeming about it. I'd watch "Gleaming the Cube" 11 times in a row before sitting through "Play It" half-way. Sadly, we cannot go back in time and prevent this brutally awful film from being made, but we can collectively do our best to remove it from the consciousness of movie-watchers by taking an oath to never subject a loved-one to it's inanity. I would not write this if I did not sincerely mean it. There is nothing you can watch out there that could ever hope to rival how truly bad this movie is.

With the Tyson fight coming to Vegas, organisers Hank Goody and Joe Domino have put together quite a few big names on the undercard. However when one of their fighters turns up drugged out with two hookers and his opponent is pronounced dead at the scene of a car accident, they are forced to try and rustle up two fighters with a few hours notice and turns to friends Vince and Cesar. Taking the offer, the friends set off with Cesar's girlfriend to make the trip to Vegas for the fight – a trip that sees them learning more about one another while also trying to prepare to try and knock each other out.I looked at the cast list for this film and wondered why such a film had managed to come and go in the UK without me even having heard of it. So many well-known actors, a big sports director and loads of star cameos – surely it must be great, well, in a word, no. This is not to say that it is awful because it isn't, it is just that the writing is nowhere near good enough to sustain the film and as a result the film is never engaging on any level. The film has a fight over the final 30 minutes, including set up, but the majority of the film sees us riding in the car with the three main characters. This focus puts a lot of onus onto them as characters and their stories to be interesting and engaging – the dynamics and the history in that car needs to be the edge, to be the hook that kept me interested. It has its interesting stuff but major things like Grace's relationship with the two men but it doesn't do anything with it whatsoever. Even during the fight her split emotions are made very clear but the actual script never bothers to develop it or make it more than very obvious padding. Sadly the majority of the dialogue was just bickering that didn't develop the characters at all and made their stories just fall flat in the telling because we don't really care about them. Bickering, as White Men Can't Jump showed us, can be fun when it is delivered as a source of comedy but here there are no laughs because it doesn't seem to want to be a comedy either. Its target seemed to have been a character sports film with laughs – but it pretty much misses all of those.This is not to say that the actual fight isn't fun because it is pretty enjoyable if you like that sort of thing. Yes it is all a bit unrealistic but it is pretty exciting at points and only gets silly at key moments. It isn't a great fight but it is at least a relief to get away from the empty bickering of the majority of the film. Sadly it ends on a low point and then drags back into the empty script again for about 10 minutes before just ending without really telling us anything. Physically Harrelson and Banderas both look good – although Woody looks the buffest and is an imposing presence. Sadly he just plays his usual character and, without the material, he is exposed. Banderas tries harder to bring some character out in his role but he is just shadow boxing because the script is not there with him. Davidovich is OK but it is evident that she had no idea why her character feels for both the men or why it is so persistent – nor does she know what to do with it and, although light and fun, she alone cannot add substance. Lucy Liu is annoying and seems only there to fill time, flash flesh and fake an orgasm for the audience. Sizemore is fun but obvious, as is Wagner but both men are very underused. The cameos all roll in at the end of the film but other than saying 'oh look it's' they don't really add anything.Overall this is a pretty poor film. It could have been better if the writing had developed the characters and made the dialogue relevant and interesting instead of just making it a load of bickering, but it didn't. The fight is enjoyable but mainly because it is a welcome break from the average stuff that has gone before, but fans of boxing will scoff at it even if it is quite fun for the most part. Generally it is a missed opportunity with an average script and no real aspirations; not bad just really weak.