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Playing for Keeps

1986

Action / Comedy

1
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 57%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 57% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 4.4/10 10 781 781

Plot summary

An ambitious trio of inner-city high school grads tries to hit the big time by turning a run-down country hotel into a rock & roll resort with around-the-clock music and live entertainment. Standing in their way are fearful townsfolk, unscrupulous businessmen and the tax collector, all threatening to bring the curtain down on the teens' aspirations. But this is one threesome who refuses to give up on their lifelong goal without a fight — and a song.

Director

Harvey Weinstein Photo
Harvey Weinstein

Top cast

Marisa Tomei Photo
Marisa Tomei as Tracy
Jimmy Baio Photo
Jimmy Baio as Steinberg
Jery Hewitt Photo
Jery Hewitt as Backhoe Driver
Raymond J. Barry Photo
Raymond J. Barry as Mr. Hatcher - Chloe's Father
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
942.23 MB
1280*714
English 2.0
NR
us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 42 min
Seeds ...
1.71 GB
1920*1072
English 2.0
NR
us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 42 min
Seeds ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by FeverDog

"And introducing Marisa Tomei as Tracy"!

I loved PLAYING FOR KEEPS when it was released in '86; I went to see it three times, and bought the soundtrack at least twice on cassette (I kept wearing it out). What can I say? I was 12. It was, at the very least, my introduction to Pete Townshend and, eventually, The Who. Last year I found the CD for a dollar in a cutout bin, and I'm shamelessly wallowing in it right now. (I'm in full-tilt cheesy '80s soundtrack mode - I've already run through BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, and I've got HIDING OUT ready to go.)Speaking of $1 finds, I recently came across a beat-up VHS tape of PLAYING FOR KEEPS, and since a DVD release seems unlikely ever to happen, is there any other way to revisit something I enjoyed in seventh grade?After watching the tape, I wondered how I could have found such an inane, simpleminded movie so appealing. The best part is right at the top - the opening credits, with Townshend's spirited "Life to Life" starting things off. Or, at least the beginning was joyful in another time; the credits are interspersed with images of New York City, including a tinted, fractured photo-negative of the World Trade Center. The movie now, at least to me, starts off on a melancholy note, but the montage is fairly brief, and unrelated to the main story.Most of the movie is set in some generic, podunk New England burg, where it's Conservative Establishment vs. Idealistic Youth as our heroes plan to change a dilapidated hotel into a rock and roll manor (the reason that a large hotel was first built in such a remote location with no visible amenities in its vicinity is never given). Thinking this premise is somehow simultaneously predictable, stock, unlikely and implausible is letting the screenwriters off easy. I guess it goes without saying that this hotel turns out to be supremely gaudy and not the least bit cool; the production reeks of early MTV - it's replete with garish neon, acid wash denim, musical montages, and "Thriller"-era choreography, including break dancing.The credits are really the only part of PLAYING FOR KEEPS that doesn't make me gag now. The movie itself is unrelentingly shoddy and drowning in clichés, occasionally surfacing for inept acting and astonishingly lamebrained dialogue. (And the obligatory invocation of the movie's title couldn't have possibly been delivered with more agonizing ham-handedness.) No wonder that the cast, with one notable exception, continues to toil in obscurity.That exception is, of course, Marisa Tomei. PLAYING FOR KEEPS will be invaluable for the future Friar's Club Roast in her honor. I doubt even her biggest fans are aware of this movie, for which she must be grateful. PLAYING FOR KEEPS also the answer to a fine trivia question; how many people would know that this is the only directorial effort by Bob Weinstein? Miramax should package the DVD with director's commentary. I'd love to hear what co-writers & directors Bob and Harvey Weinstein have to say about this skeleton, and surely most of the cast could take some time off from their oh-so-busy schedules to record a separate cast track.Now that I've come clean about PLAYING FOR KEEPS, I should go ahead and disown other cinematic indiscretions from my youth. I better start rumaging through the bargain bins for used VHS tapes of RAD and MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY to expunge any lingering fondness for those equally banal movies.
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Reviewed by emulover 4 / 10

Spontaneous Choreographed Dancing Anyone??

Let me just set the scene. The kids are beginning to fix up an old hotel. They look pretty bored while they're sawing and hammering and whatnot. THEN, one of them throws in a Sister Sledge tape. First the black kid starts doing a little air guitar with his broom. Harmless enough. Then the two guys sawing logs start to feel the music and get looks on their faces like "Oh yeah, I can dig that!" And then, and then, it happens....SPONTANEOUS CHOREOGRAPHED DANCING. Wow was that a treat! And to top it all off, the token old guy who is helping them tilts his body back and gives shrieks of ecstasy right in sync with the music! And that is the movie as far as I'm concerned.

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