Play It to the Bone is a 1999

1999 in film

The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...

 sports/comedy-drama film, starring Antonio Banderas

Antonio Banderas

José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...

 and Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson

Woodrow Tracy "Woody" Harrelson is an American actor.Harrelson's breakthrough role came in the television sitcom Cheers as bartender Woody Boyd...

, written and directed by Ron Shelton

Ron Shelton

Ron Shelton is a U.S. film director and screenwriter, most notable for making movies about sports.Shelton is an alumnus of Santa Barbara High School and of the University of Arizona and Westmont College...

.

It follows the adventures of two boxers

Boxing

Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

 and best friends who travel to Las Vegas

Las Vegas Strip

The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...

 in order to fight each other for the sake of a chance to compete for the middleweight

Middleweight

Middleweight is a division, or weight class, in boxing. Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have begun in the 1840s. In the bare-knuckle era, the first middleweight championship fight was between Tom Chandler and Dooney Harris in 1897...

 title. The film also starred Lolita Davidovich

Lolita Davidovich

Lolita Davidovich is a Canadian film and television actress.-Early life and career:Davidovich was born in London, Ontario, the daughter of immigrants from Yugoslavia. Her father was from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, and her mother was from Slovenia; she spoke only Serbian during her early years...

, Tom Sizemore

Tom Sizemore

Thomas Edward "Tom" Sizemore, Jr. is an American film and television actor and producer. He is known for his roles in films such as Saving Private Ryan, Strange Days, Pearl Harbor, Heat and Black Hawk Down....

, Lucy Liu

Lucy Liu

Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress and film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in the television series Ally McBeal , and has also appeared in several Hollywood films including Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, and Kung Fu Panda.-Early...

, and Robert Wagner

Robert Wagner

Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...

.

Cameo appearance

Cameo appearance

A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...

s include: Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...

, Wesley Snipes

Wesley Snipes

Wesley Trent Snipes is an American actor, film producer, and martial artist, who has starred in numerous action films, thrillers, and dramatic feature films. Snipes is known for playing the Marvel Comics character Blade in the Blade film trilogy, among various other high profile roles...

, Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson

Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...

, Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner

Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J...

, Rod Stewart

Rod Stewart

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....

, Jennifer Tilly

Jennifer Tilly

Jennifer Tilly is an American actress and poker player. She is an Academy Award nominee, and a World Series of Poker Ladies' Event bracelet winner. She is the older sister of actress Meg Tilly.-Early life:...

, Natasha Gregson Wagner

Natasha Gregson Wagner

Natasha Gregson Wagner is an American actress.Gregson Wagner was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Richard Gregson, a film producer, and the late actress Natalie Wood...

 and Drew Carey

Drew Carey

Drew Allison Carey is an American actor, singer, comedian, photographer, sports executive, and game show host. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and making a name for himself in stand-up comedy, Carey eventually gained popularity starring on his own sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, and serving as...

.

Plot

Aging prizefighter

Prizefighter

A prizefighter is a boxer.Prizefighter may also refer to:*Don King Presents: Prizefighter, a video game by 2k Sports released in 2008*Prize Fighter, a video game by Digital Pictures released in 1994 for the Sega CD...

s and longtime pals Cesar Dominguez (Banderas) and Vince Boudreau (Harrelson) always regretted not getting one last shot. Out of the blue, such an opportunity comes their way — except it is to fight each other.

Boxing promoter Joe Domino (Sizemore) has a problem on his hands. The fighters scheduled to be on his undercard in Vegas, a preliminary to a main event featuring heavyweight Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson

Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...

, suddenly become unavailable at the last minute. He needs replacements fast, so a call is made to a gym in Los Angeles to see if Dominguez and Boudreau would be willing to step into the ring against one another.

The boxers negotiate one condition: that the winner will be given a chance to fight for the middleweight championship. Domino agrees, although the untrustworthy promoter is not necessarily a man of his word.

Cesar and Vince have only a day to get to the fight. They decide to drive rather than fly, so they call upon their friend Grace (Davidovich) to drive them in her lime green Oldsmobile 442. Grace is a former love interest of both. Grace's own plan is to pitch her various money-making ideas to Vegas bigshots like hotel and casino boss Hank Goody (Wagner) and raise venture capital. Along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker (Liu) whose insults finally result in Grace's flattening her with a solid right cross worthy of her traveling companions.

The fight between the two friends is sparsely attended, ringside fans and celebrities remaining uninterested until the night's main event. Cesar and Vince mix it up so savagely, however, beating each other to a bloody pulp, that fans in the arena begin paying more and more attention, as do commentators on TV.

When the action-packed and dramatic bout comes to an end, Cesar and Vince are paid off, but promptly spend most of their money in the casino. Grace, too, comes away bruised and empty-handed, except for her everlasting relationship between a couple of hard-headed but soft-hearted guys.

Reception

The film garnered a generally poor reception, with Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

giving it an average rating of 3.9 out of 10.
Professional critical reception was similar, with Empire magazine giving it just 2 stars out of 5.