Play It to the Bone (R) No Rating

Play it to the Bone" opens with a beautiful, seductive and even tranquil sequence of Las Vegas near dusk. Panning above the manmade, anachronistic mammoth hotels to a woman singing about dreamers and dreams, Vegas -- bathing in its surreal glory -- is literally luring all hapless dreamers and would-be losers to crave out a piece of their own destiny in the city.

The dreamers and losers in this case are Vince (Woody Harrelson) and Caesar (Antonio Banderas), a couple of over-the-hill middleweight boxers and friends who get a last-minute call from Vegas to fill in for a high-profile fight that very night. Each with a botched chance at fame earlier in their careers, the two hit the road to Vegas with Caesar's girlfriend, also Vince's ex-girlfriend, Grace (Lolita Davidovich), in the hope of redeeming their past and regaining their fleeting glory.

What ensues is unfortunately a long, uneventful and thinly disguised road trip that is supposed to provide a certain level of emotional and psychological depth to the characters. Marked with nonstop bickering, fits of jealousy and momentary revelations of vulnerability, the drive evokes not the sense of male bonding but petty male competitiveness. What comes across, besides miscalculated humor, is the sheer hellishness of being stuck with two infantile, egotistical males who are as stereotypical macho as they are childish in their behaviors.

In giving so much time and care to this portion of the film, director Ron Shelton almost ends up eclipsing the amazing showdown between Vince and Caesar that is the real climax of the movie. Raw and bloodied, the fight, in 10 full rounds, is really where the audiences begin to first identify with the conflicting struggles -- between winning and beating your best friend -- the two fighters are going through. The fight succeeds, to paraphrase one of the characters, in stripping the two men down to their very bones, revealing with every punch the suppressed layers of their psychological state.

A filmmaker with a proclivity for making movies about sports, Shelton has tackled similar themes of masculinity, loyalty, competitiveness and their inherent conflict within the parameter of sports in films such as "Bull Durham" and "White Men Can't Jump." With "Play it to the Bone," a similar dynamic is rehashed to make similar points about how men connect in the world.

And it is a tired and exhausted portrayal of masculinity with an underlying sense of homophobia and flippant misogyny. A more daring move may be for Shelton to take the discussion outside the metaphor of sports.

*MPAA rating: R, for brutal ring violence, strong sexuality including dialogue, nudity, pervasive language, and some drug content.

"Play it to the Bone"

Woody Harrelson: Vince

Antonio Banderas: Caesar

Lolita Davidovich: Grace

Tom Sizemore: Joe Domino

Lucy Liu: Lia

A Buena Vista presentation. Director Ron Shelton. Screenplay Ron Shelton. Producer Stephen Chin. Director of Photography Mark Vargo. Editor Paul Seydor. Art Director Mary Finn. Set Decorator Danielle Berman. Costume Designer Dathryn Morrison. Runng time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.