Play It to the Bone Blu-ray Review
Trading Punches with Life
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, October 8, 2011
Ron Shelton is best known for his sports movies, but the films wouldn't be interesting if they
were just about sports. At his best, Shelton achieves the very thing that every coach labors to
deliver whenever he gives a pep talk, except that Shelton does it with the ease of a natural athlete
-- he makes sports a metaphor for life. In
Bull Durham, which remains his best-loved film, he
turned baseball's minor leagues into a school for molding a boy into a man, as "Nuke" LaLoosh
was tutored in love by Annie Savoy and in loyalty by Crash Davis. In
White Men Can't Jump,
basketball became the theater for exploring multiple dimensions of friendship.
Tin Cup used golf
to examine second chances and the price of success. And then there was
Play It to the Bone, a
boxing movie that no one knew what to make of, because it seemed to be about everything and
nothing. Viewers couldn't get a handle on the film's core subject .
In fact,
Play It to the Bone is something of a reprise of Shelton's previous sports films, but not in
the sense of a summing up. Like a musician improvising, Shelton weaves among familiar themes,
working variations as if to say, "'Twas ever thus." He gives us an older, more cynical version of
Annie Savoy (played by his wife and muse, Lolita Davidovich), who still loves athletes but has
decided she's through depending on them; another pair of sports rivals who really love each other
(replacing the racial diversity of
White Men Can't Jump with ethnic diversity by pairing the
former's star Woody Harrelson with Antonio Banderas); and a full array of cynical Las Vegas
promoters whose complete lack of interest in real competition makes
Tin Cup's Simms (played
with memorable smarm by Don Johnson) look like a true sportsman. The result may not deliver a
tidy ending with a clear moral, but it makes for an entertaining two hours.
Two thirty-something boxers, Vince Boudreau (Harrelson) and Cesar Dominguez (Banderas),
have landed in Los Angeles after failing to hit the big time. Once, they were both promising
middleweights, and Cesar made it all the way to a title bout at Madison Square Garden. But for
various reasons -- timing, bad management, character, maybe just dumb luck -- both of them
missed their shot. Now they train daily at the same gym, take whatever fights they can get and
eke out a meager existence. Vince has rediscovered his own brand of fundamentalist faith and
bears a tatoo that reads "Jesus Is a Rebel". Cesar remains "an atheist, thank God!"
Both men are in love with the same woman, Grace Pasic (Davidovich), a small-time inventor and
would-be entrepreneur, who has several patents for offbeat items like specialized socks and a
periscope for watching TV while lying flat in bed. Grace apparently makes enough off her
licensing royalties to support herself. She used to be with Vince, and currently she's with Cesar,
but, like Annie in
Bull Durham, she's always the one in charge.
The movie is set on the day of a fictional Las Vegas title match between Mike Tyson and Alexei
Rustikov. That very morning, both fighters on the "undercard", or opening act, are found
incapacitated from various hazards of high living. On ridiculously short notice, the fight's
promoter, Joe Domino (Tom Sizemore), has to find replacements, because the ring at the
fabulous Mandalay Bay Hotel complex owned by Hank Goody (Robert Wagner) is fully booked
and the pay-per-view rights have already been sold for mega-bucks. Domino and his go-to guy,
Artie (Richard Masur, with a truly frightening wheeze), scrape down
past the bottom of the
barrel until they reach Cesar and Vince. Domino hates them both, but if they can make it to
Vegas by five that afternoon, they'll each earn $50,000.
Vince, who fancies himself a hustler, insists on negotiating and almost blows the deal, but in the
end he manages to obtain an extra clause that says the winner will get a title shot. Domino's
lawyers assure the boss they can draft language he can wiggle out of. Besides, who will be
representing Cesar and Vince? The only lawyer they can afford will be someone working for
Domino.
The promoters expect Cesar and Vince to fly, but they elect to drive from L.A. instead,
chauffeured by Grace in her vintage "sassy brass" green Oldsmobile. Her motive for
accompanying them is to network, looking for an investor to put venture capital into her
inventions. The first half of the film is essentially a road trip in which the three companions swap
stories, confessions, banter and insults. It's enlivened by the Southwestern countryside (Grace
prefers the scenic route), by a stop to load up on carbs at a diner with a no-nonsense waitress
played by
The Sopranos' Aida Turturro, and by an unexpected fourth passenger, Lia (Lucy Liu),
who takes the notion of "girls just wanna have fun" to its mercenary extreme. After falling out
with Grace, Lia ultimately appears at ringside on the arm of . . . well, it's better if you see for
yourself.
The second half of the film is the fight, which could fairly be described as an anti-
Rocky. First of
all, there isn't a "top dog" and an underdog, because
both fighters are underdogs, an irony that's
underlined by the absurdity of Grace rooting for both of them. ("Who are you rooting for?" asks
Rudy (Cylk Cozart), part of Domino's entourage. "Both of them", Grace replies. "I love these
guys.") Second, no one's paying attention, at least at the outset. Even the announcement of the
fight is cut short by the news of Mike Tyson's arrival. But as round follows round, and Cesar and
Vince pour a decade's worth of pent-up frustrations, hopes and dreams into punching,
counterpunching, dragging themselves up off the mat when they can barely see straight and
lurching back into the ring each time the bell sounds, the crowd begins to take notice. They're
seeing something they've haven't seen in a long time: real, honest-to-goodness fighters putting
their hearts and souls into a match. (In a true irony, the Tyson bout, which was supposed to be the
main event, is over in seconds.)
I'm not enough of a boxing expert to assess the quality of the simulation that Shelton and his
actors achieved in the lengthy fight sequences, but I know enough about film to admire the clever
editing rhythms that keep shifting the perspective from ringside to ref's view to each fighter's
POV -- and even to the bleary interior states where Cesar and Vince see and hear things that
aren't there. Both are haunted by crucial moments early in their careers, Cesar by a knockdown
from which he arose a second too late, and Vince by a judges' decision that cost him a title by a
single point. Vince is also certain that Jesus appears to him, and the Savior does indeed seem to
enter the ring several times.
The outcome isn't
Rocky-like, either. Sure, the crowd goes wild, but careers aren't altered. This
bout was never supposed to happen, and the suits have ensured that business will proceed
unchanged. In their heart of hearts, Cesar and Vince know that the house always wins, despite
Vince's recurring efforts to devise systems for beating the odds at gambling. In the end, what
really matters is friendship, the love of a good woman (if you can keep her, which neither of
these two seems able to), and knowing that you gave your all for the thing you care most about --
everything, right down to the bone. If you read between the lines, it's the same lesson Crash
Davis was trying to impart to Nuke.
