Synopsis

Two aging former middleweight contenders and lifelong friends get a last-minute chance to revive their boxing careers when they are booked to fight each other in Las Vegas. With their mutual former lover driving them across the desert, the unlikely trio races toward the bout while confronting old rivalries, romantic complications, and the uneasy possibility that only one friend can emerge victorious.

Factoids & Trivia

• Ron Shelton based the premise on a story he heard from people in the boxing world about two journeyman fighters who were best friends, drove together to a last-minute Las Vegas bout, and then gambled away their pay.

• Shelton deliberately avoided the usual sports-movie structure of giving the audience one obvious fighter to support. He wanted viewers to remain equally invested in both friends.

• The film's boxing match was designed as an unconventional sports climax. Rather than building toward a simple victory, the story questions the usual expectation that a sports movie must end with a clear winner.

• The production included numerous appearances by boxing figures and entertainment personalities, including Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Wesley Snipes, Kevin Costner, James Woods, Drew Carey, Tony Curtis, and Rod Stewart.

• With a reported production budget of $24 million, the film earned approximately $8.4 million domestically. It opened in limited release on December 25, 1999, before expanding nationwide on January 14, 2000.

• The movie received a poor critical response and was a commercial disappointment, despite coming from Shelton, whose earlier sports films included Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump, and Tin Cup.

• The film is rated R for brutal boxing violence, strong sexual material and dialogue, nudity, pervasive language, and some drug content.