Play it to the Bone (Touchtone, R)
Starring Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas
Rating:
One and a half stars - Quite painful, and not in a very good way.
Despite its interesting premise that good friends make even better enemies," "Play it to the Bone" fails to engage viewers enough to really care.
The friends in question are Vince Boudreau (Woody Harrelson) and Cesar Dominguez (Antonio Banderas), down-and-out boxers training at the same gym. Their hopeless future is suddenly interrupted by the ring of a phone and a proposition.
The promoters of a major bout are in a definite bind: Two boxers booked for an undercard match in Las Vegas for a Mike Tyson match overdosed on cocaine and died in a car crash, respectively. Because a barren undercard would leave an entertainment void for the celebrities on hand, the smarmy promoter calls the boxers for the chance of a lifetime - if they can find their way to Las Vegas, each will receive $50,000 to fight the other.
Of course, they accept, because this is movie world and 10-minute movies aren't in high demand right now. The mode of transportation is the lime green driving machine owned by Grace Pasic (Lolita Davidovich), Cesar's girlfriend. Thus begins the uneventful scenic road trip with faux personal observations and "wacky" run-ins.
One of these is with Lia (Lucy Liu), a one-dimensional floosy/druggie who is only necessary to the plot because if she didn't make an appearance, the movie would be more boring than an actual road trip with the parents to Wyoming.
Writer/director Ron Shelton, who was behind such admired sport/personality struggles as "White Men Can't Jump" and "Tin Cup," never seems to give the characters a real problem in their lives. We all know they will get to the fight and receive a nice paycheck in the process. The last remaining interest is in who wins the bout, not in changes the characters make, because they remain the same throughout the flick.
The most facinating portion of the film is the over-the-top portrayal of the corruption-rotted heads of pro boxing. This is no expose. It treats the actions as if there were no alternative. Given the state of boxing today, the attempt to shock people with this behavior inevitiably fails.
What is surprising, however, is the portrayal of a boxing match no one cares about. Most boxing movies deal with the "main event of the century," but this isn't even the match of the day, in terms of hype. Still, after a ferocious opening, the crowd starts to change, a la "Rocky IV." And, in comparison to Mike Tyson beating some scrub, (the Peter McNeely watch is still in effect) the undercard takes center stage, at least for one night. So, the final showdown finally takes place, and the action looks pretty realistic. There doesn't seem to be any "phantom punches" making their way into the final cut. Oddly enough, the match has to be one of the most testosterone-filled finales to a major motion picture, featuring gratuitous violence, nudity and religion.
While Harrelson would be hard-pressed to repeat the great performance he gave in "White Men Can't Jump," he manages a solid performance, given the material. Sorely missing in the buddy-flick equation is someone to bounce great dialogue off of. Banderas just doesn't make the grade with his sometimes-unintelligible responses. A quick warning for any sensitive (and misguided) potential viewers: Watch out for heavy doses of homosexual humor. The past "Explorations" of Cesar's character are repeatedly mentioned and put down with intended laughs. While some may find the jokes hilarious, they are potentially offensive.
And, while the conversations are realistic, more enjoyment could be found if some witty lines found their way into the script, somehow meandering off another script in the pile. Without snappy dialogue in a character-based film, we are left with nothing more than nice shots of the southwest United States. One plus was that Wesley Snipes made a cameo. Couldn't they ask him for a few playground put-downs, just for old time's sake?
Originally published in the 1/27/00 edition of the Northern Star.
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