It's not a bad movie. Let me just say that outright. It's just not a good movie either.

The premise is two has-been fighters are called to do a late substitution in a fight, and have a few hours to drive to Las Vegas for the fight together. The catch is, they're friends. The woman who volunteers to drive them is both characters' ex-girlfriend, and along the way they pick up a stranded Lucy Lui.

First off, let me just say that none of the characters is particularly likable. Sure we expect our characters to have pasts, but this is just too much. Even for me... We out find that Antonio Banderas is a sexual "experimenter" who is torn up after his girlfriend of six whole months dumps him. We learn that Woody Harrelson's character is a freaky religious zealot who sees Jesus from time to time, and is a homophobe. We find that Gloria (both men's ex) is a self-serving power hungry bitch, who will stomp on anybody when it's convenient, just to keep the upper hand in the relationship. And we find out that Lucy Lui's character is a classical hedonist who is either getting drunk, high, or fucked, or whines about how she is not drunk, high or getting fucked.

So we learn about that sordid pasts, and what "drives" them all. And we get to see Lui get drunk, high and fucked, and then we get to Las Vegas, where Lui's character is sent packing with an uppercut. (Ah come on, it was in the trailer for God's sake) After spending the first painful hour of the film with the characters we learn that none of them really has any redeeming virtues other than their sport. Which might be true with a lot of professional athletes, but it doesn't particularly make good viewing.

At last the fight starts without much fanfare. And while the match is absolutely amazing to watch, what we wind up finding out is that other than fighting ability, neither man has much going. We also find out that Gloria still cares about both, and we learn about her motives and behavior during the car ride.

This movie deserves the ending that it had. And let me just say, that this is a perfect Hollywood movie. Rather than making movies people really love, Hollywood prefers to make movies that everyone will "like" so they can drive box office reciepts. If no one says the movies particularly bad, then you just might get the casual movie watcher to throw down $8.00. So let's hear it for the Big Studios. You did yourselves proud.

With a little more polish, and with some likeable characters, it could have been a great movie, but I suppose on the accuracy scale it comes up big.

When you're supposed to root for both guys, and yet you think they're both slimeballs...
What can I say. Whoopty?!