Play It To The Bone

by Tom Meek

Writer/director Ron Shelton has forged a virtuoso career out of the sports movie. In Bull Durham and White Men Can't Jump he deconstructed bush-league athletics with intrepid wit, but in this boxing parody, as in his golf movie, Tin Cup, Shelton swings wildly.

Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas play aging, never-was boxers and best friends who get a last-chance opportunity for a title shot. The hitch is, they have to face each other first (filling a bizarre, last-second undercard vacancy) -- which means they have to make it from LA to Vegas by nightfall. The welling machismo tension is further heightened by the presence of a common former lover (a miscast Lolita Davidovich), who's in tow for the trip, and the unearthed secret that Banderas's pugilist has taken a walk on the wild side.

The premise is titillating, but Play It to the Bone morphs into a turgid road movie as the trio career through the desert, beating their chests, reliving the past, and contemplating their futures. Harrelson and Banderas put their charismatic best foot forward, and when the fisticuffs finally do go off, there are flashes of Shelton's old brilliance, but besides that, the only bright spot here is Lucy Liu (of Ally McBeal fame) as the sultry, self-serving hitcher with a loose cannon of a mouth.