WHAT can you say about a boxing movie in which the most convincing blows are landed by Lolita Davidovich and Robert Wagner — instead of leads Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas?
“Play It to the Bone” doesn’t have a bad premise. It was inspired by a true story of two best friends, washed-up fighters who get enlisted as last-minute replacements on the undercard for a championship bout.
In writer-director Ron Shelton’s enervated, drawn-out version, long-forgotten middleweights Vince Boudreau (Harrelson) and Cesar Dominguez (Banderas) get the frantic call when one fighter dies in a car crash and the other overdoses on drugs — the very day they were scheduled to be the top undercard match on a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas.
They agree to fight each other — but only after extracting a promise from sleazy promoter Joe Domino (Tom Sizemore) that the winner will get a title bout with the middleweight champ.
For no logical reason, the duo spend the day driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas with Grace Pasic (Davidovich) — Vince’s ex-girlfriend, who chooses the occasion to inform her current paramour, Cesar, that she’s dumping him, too.
This prompts a full 90 minutes of tedious bickering, tiresome reminiscences and lackluster performances as they cross the desert. The sequence includes Cesar’s admission that he experimented with homosexuality after a gay fighter ended his career.
The confession prompts a homophobic tirade from Vince, who suffers from religious visions that Shelton thoughtfully shares with the audience.
Things aren’t helped much by the arrival of Lia (Lucy Liu of “Ally McBeal”), a sexy young hitchhiker who takes a fancy to Vince — at least until Davidovich demonstrates a better hook than we’ll see when Vince and Cesar finally get around to fighting.
This decking prompts one of the film’s many groan-worthy observations from the wildly misogynistic Vince: “Any guy with any gal is a mismatch — we’re just not equipped to go the distance.”
Neither is this movie. The fight scenes are flat and poorly staged, no matter how much the sound of punches is goosed on the soundtrack and how much fake blood is applied to the combatants. The bout — the last round of which is played out in slow-motion — is a bloody bore.
Not even a slew of cameos (an over-the-hill gang that runs the gamut from Steve Lawrence to Rod Stewart) helps much. The brief participation of Kevin Costner is a sad reminder that Shelton once directed the great “Bull Durham,” and Wesley Snipes turns up momentarily to represent another far livelier Shelton sports movie, “White Men Can’t Jump.”
And then there is the venerable Robert Wagner, who has a larger role as the owner of the hotel where the match is being held. He sets out to seduce Grace, an inventor who’s trying to sell him a periscope for watching TV in bed.
“I knew Brigitte Bardot,” Wagner boasts, trying to impress the younger woman.
“I bet you did,” she replies, with timing sadly lacking in most of the movie. He makes a pass, she slaps his face — and he decks her.
That’s about as entertaining as “Play It to the Bone” ever gets. Otherwise, it’s bone tired.
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PLAY IT TO THE BONE 1/2
Bone-tired comedy in which two best friends (Woody Harrelson, Antonio Banderas) are recruited as emergency replacements for a boxing match. The fight isn’t much more exciting than their drawn-out trip to Las Vegas with their joint ex-girlfriend (Lolita Davidovich). Running time: 124 minutes. Rated R. At the 42nd Street E-Walk, the Sutton, the Union Square, others.