Play It To the Bone

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A wonderfully entertaining, raunchy, hilarious and savage foray into the lives of a couple of beat-up middle-weight boxers who get a second chance.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Either Shelton knows this world well, or he's such a great bluffer it doesn't matter.

USA Today Staff [Not Credited]

Another invigorating, extremely raunchy sports movie from Ron Shelton .

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Throws us directly into the ring for one of the most brutal fight scenes in American film.

San Francisco Examiner Edvins Beitiks

A wicked, light-headed first half dissolves into a bloody, head-bashing second half . The previews make it seem like a comedy. It isn't.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Fghting your heart out at the end of this movie can't win the prize or the crowd.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A boxing film with no conflictual punch.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The film is nothing much to look at and has trouble swallowing its own clichs and implausibilities.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Benefits from an amiable chemistry between Harrelson and Banderas, and Davidovich always makes a good tough-as-nails dame with more smarts than any man will give her credit for.

Film.com Tom Keogh

This is still Ron Shelton in good -- not great, but good -- form here, and the rewards are plentiful.

TV Guide Steve Simels

Vince and Cesar have been written to evoke equal audience sympathy, so there's no suspense whatsover in the outcome of their climactic match-up, the brutal realism of Shelton's staging notwithstanding.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Even when his work is at its most contrived, which it certainly is here, writer-director Ron Shelton is the best purveyor of jock humor around.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

(Shelton) knows how to write pungent dialogue that covers a multitude of sins when the film goes off the rails.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

This is no "Raging Bull."

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Ron Shelton's boxing pic is long on road work but strictly a flyweight.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie doesn't know how odd it seems to cut from the bloodshed in the ring to the dialogue of the supporting players, who still think they're in a comedy.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Isn't going to be a contender

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

A punch-drunk lightweight. Inside the ring, it lands some forceful punches. Outside the ring, it stumbles around, swinging wildly at nothing, until it collapses.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

It's bone tired.

Mr. Showbiz Larry Terenzi

Shelton attempts to fashion a kind of road movie-love triangle-sports flick. He fails on all three counts.

Newsweek Kevin Stuart

A half-hearted comedy whose jokes are far from a knockout.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

As dopey as its heroes, and the cast's admirable energy isn't enough to keep the story punching through the final round.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

In this movie, he (Shelton) falls so hard he becomes, for the first time in his career, genuinely offensive.

Miami Herald Sara Wildberger

If you really love "Bull Durham," don't go near Play It to the Bone. It will break your heart.

Time Richard Schickel

Never achieves more than feckless amiability.

Variety Robert Koehler

A woefully under-realized story of small-time boxers enjoying perhaps their last moment in the spotlight.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Does not live up to its name. It's more like White Men Can't Box, Either.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

As dull as the decor in a Motel 6.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Are they fools or heroes? Because the movie can't decide, neither can we. And without an emotional payoff, Play It to the Bone ends up stranded in serio-comic limbo.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

The journey is a yawn -- an outpouring of backstory, punctuated by cute episodic diversions and ill-advised running gags.

Dallas Observer David Ehrenstein

A road movie trapped in a cul-de-sac.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Doesn't quite have the goods.

TNT RoughCut Kellam Eanes

Despite some redeemable comic dialog between Banderas and Harrelson, most of the movie is TKO.