Customer Reviews

Playing For Keeps

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Playing for Keeps was a good movie, funny, romantic, and had a messsage to not give up on ur dreams. Three high school graduates from the Big City decided to turn a run down hotel into a rock n roll resort. Though it took them alot of time & patience, they accomplished that goal. Though the slimy Chemical owner & Cromwell tried to buy the land to put a Chemical plant, they never failed in doing so. Though the people of that suburban town didn't like them they are here to stay! I recommend this movie for anyone who likes to watch comedy. Trust me you will like Playing for Keeps too:)

my first time seeing this movie was in 1995 i was in love with it its one of those movies you gotta love i like the part when they was selling the candy boy it was something else this was the best teen movie of 1986 it was a different world then we didint have as many crimes matthew penn was very good to bad daniel jordano career didnt go much farther like i say when i watch this movie i get chills in my body i wish i could go back to 1986 when this movie was made i dont care you cant say a bad thing about this movie because its the bomb very hard to find

Well, it's always a pleasure watching Marisa Tomei and I'm not the only one who thinks so. So when you want to sell a DVD you put her on the cover of the box, without mentioning ofcourse that she has only a tiny supporting role in this movie, like 6 minutes of exposure. So I bought it, watched the movie and was very much dissappointed. This is a movie of below-average quality, only suitable for 16-year-olds that have an evening off and don't know what to do with themselves. Too bad.....

This movie also has a great soundtrack to it!

This is a generic, and far-fetched story, which is very similar to most other 80's films--Kids trying to save a community center, school, in this case a hotel from evil Real estate developers!!

Why was this story told so many times in the 80's?

"Breakin", "Beat Street", etc.

FAR FETCHED!!!

The only saving grace of the film is some of the music--Phil Collin's "We said hello goodbye" is a classic, and Marisa Tomei is absolutely ADORABLE.

You know why you are considering this movie. So does Universal; look at the dvd cover. She wears bright lipstick; big, plastic jewelry; ridiculous clothes; cute bows and ribbons in her hair--all pink and 80s. All too cute. But she does not get much screen time. The main characters are three male friends. And other than Marisa, this movie is terrible.

The brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein wrote and directed this film, which was the first project for their Miramax Studios. Bob and Harvey would go on to be successful producers and Miramax would harbor some really great projects that were both commercially successful as well as being artistic triumphs, but thankfully, as producers they never hired themselves as writers or directors again. Sometimes directors can also be good producers, producing their own projects, but the reverse doesn't hold true. Bob and Harvey are not entirely devoid of talent, but their first instincts are as producers which inevitably lead to very bad choices. What choices and how bad? Where to begin:

Three friends from High School, Danny, Spike, and Silk (Daniel Jordano, Matthew Penn, and Leon W. Grant, respectively) are trying to raise money to pay back taxes on a dilapidated hotel that Danny has inherited. Their efforts to refurbish said hotel and keep it out of the hands of the evil Real Estate Developer who wants to turn it into a chemical dump site is what Playing for Keeps is "about." But first they must raise $8,000, and after many fund raising attempts fail miserably they hit on wearing Boy Scout uniforms and selling Girl Scout cookies. Why this would be successful is never explained, but apparently no one can resist strange boys in uniforms with cookies on offer.

Harvey and Bob use a silly game, kind of a more complicated version of Hide 'N' Seek--Christopher Columbus--as a framing device. This frivolity is supposedly played for life-and-death stakes with a local street gang. It is as absurd as when the gangs in West Side Story start dancing instead of stabbing each other, but not nearly as entertaining. They tie it in again later but how I won't say for fear of spoiling the ending for anyone unfortunate enough to have to suffer through this movie.

Tracy (Marisa Tomei in her third movie role, and her first major part) arrives on the scene to offer her panties as a distraction to the other team in the game. Gratuitous, gratuitous, gratuitous.

They have a totally gratuitous scene where bank teller/country girl Chloe (Mary B. Ward) takes off her top to go skinny dipping. While this offered a pleasant diversion from the dismal movie it was not "integral" to the "plot" in any way. It was a sleazy producer's decision, as if they just threw it in like an explosion or car chase.

Chloe Hatcher checks into the hotel. She is staying there for days, helping with the refurbishing when she has a spare moment between skinny dips. Suddenly Mr. Hatcher her angry father shows up. Where was he all this time while his daughter had been living at the hotel? Chloe's father was played by Raymond J. Barry who has made quite a distinguished career out of playing fathers; he was Tom Cruise's dad in Born on the Fourth of July, and Pa Cox in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. His talents were wasted here even more so than when he played Man in 1995's Headless Body in Topless Bar.

Speaking of wasted talent, Harold Gould played Rockerfeller, an enigmatic squatter with a complicated past who lives in the hotel, and stays on when the boys arrive to offer sage advice. Although his part was poorly written by Bob and Harvey Weinstein that didn't stop this veteran actor from turning in another fine performance. Most of his work has been in Television, but not just any Television, but most of the best comedies and dramas that Television has to offer.

Harold Gould was nominated for five Emmys. He has a PhD in Drama and he taught Drama and Speech at Cornell. He was on numerous television programs from that palindrome year, 1961, to recently: Rhoda, The King of Queens, Outer Limits, The Golden Girls, Dallas, Night Court, L.A. Law, St. Elsewhere, The Love Boat, Police Story, Hawaii Five-O, The Bob Crane Show, Cannon, Gunsmoke, The Streets of San Francisco, Ironsides, Mary Tyler Moore, The Partridge Family, Mannix, Love American Style, The F.B.I., Colombo, The High Chaparral, Hogan's Heroes, The Mod Squad, Here Come the Brides, I Dream of Jeannie, Mission: Impossible, The Debbie Reynolds Show, The Big Valley, Wild Wild West, The Flying Nun, Daniel Boone, The Red Skelton Hour, The Fugitive, The Green Hornet, Get Smart, Love on a Rooftop, The Farmer's Daughter, The Virginian, 12 O'clock High, Hazel, The Jack Benny Program, Dr. Kildare, Perry Mason, Mister Ed, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Twilight Zone--twice, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Route 66, Dennis the Menace, The Untouchables, The Donna Reed Show, and National Velvet.

The evil developer Cromwell (Robert Milli) was yet another instance of talent gone to waste. He played Horatio to Sir Richard Burton's Hamlet, for goodness sake. His performance here was good, but poorly written. Bob and Harvey Weinstein are certainly not the Shakespeare brothers. What a poor choice to name him Cromwell, a name that resonates with profound meaning. Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 - 3 September 1658) was one of the commanders of the New Model Army which defeated the royalists in the English Civil War. After the execution of King Charles I in 1649, Cromwell dominated the short-lived Commonwealth of England, conquered Ireland and Scotland, and ruled as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death from malaria in 1658. Any writer worth his salt would have known who Oliver Cromwell was and used it for a character named Cromwell, either by making him parallel Cromwell, or making him be the exact antithesis of Cromwell, and therefore bitterly ironic.

I could go on endlessly listing egregious errors made by the brothers Weinstein, but since they have mercifully ended their reign of error, I will refrain, and get to what some viewers may wonder most about this movie, and that is, is it worth seeing for Marisa Tomei's early performance?

If you are a huge fan of Marisa Tomei you might want to see it for that reason alone. Don't be fooled by the box cover though. They try to make it look like a star vehicle for Marisa Tomei, with her picture towering over the other characters, but that was only done after she'd won the Oscar and gone on to bigger and better things. Though she doesn't skinny dip with Mary B. Ward, she does make out with Spike in a steamy scene immediately thereafter the dipping of the skinny (Scene 10, if you are impatient). She looks cute, and I guess Molly Ringwald wasn't the only one who was pretty in pink in the 80's. Marisa even dances in pink pajamas in a frothy musical interlude.

What about the music? Would that be a reason to watch Playing for Keeps? No. Just as Bob and Harvey are no Willie the Shakes, they are no John Hugheses either. The soundtrack boasts the talents of Pete Townshend, Julian Lennon, Peter Frampton, and Sister Sledge, but for the most part Bob and Harvey chose the worst examples of 80's music, and made of it a parody that even nostalgia would want to forget. Instead of the unforgettable "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds from The Breakfast Club or the title track of Pretty in Pink by the Psychedelic Furs you get lame 80's music like they had in St. Elmo's Fire. There is even a sax solo in Silk's big Playing for Keeps finale, and the sax player fakes playing the sax worse than Raw Blow!

Bottom Line is avoid Playing for Keeps. If you want to see a young Marisa Tomei, try Untamed Heart. That is also a flawed film, but at least she is the true romantic lead, along with Christian Slater, rather than fraudulently made to look like the lead on the box cover by the marketeers in hindsight. If you like films about refurbishing hotels, try Hotel for Dogs. The plot is even more implausible, but it is really clever, and plus you get all those really cute dogs.

The Wrestler (2008) Marisa Tomei was Cassidy
Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story (Widescreen Edition) (2007) Raymond J. Barry was Pa Cox
Factotum (2005) Marisa Tomei was Laura
Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) Marisa Tomei was Rita Abromowitz
Untamed Heart (1993) Marisa Tomei was Caroline
Chaplin (1992) Marisa Tomei was Mabel Normand
My Cousin Vinny (1992) Marisa Tomei was Mona Lisa Vito
The Wanderers (1979) Leon W. Grant was Boo Boo
Harper (1966) Harold Gould was Sheriff
Richard Burton's Hamlet (1964) Robert Milli was Horatio

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Hamlet: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy
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I don't generally find movie actresses attractive; usually their phoniness shows through all too obviously...but wow, Marisa Tomei is adorable (don't tell my wife I said that). This is one of her (Marisa's, not my wife's) first big-screen appearances, in an otherwise fairly routine 80's teen comedy that "stars" people like Daniel Jordano and Michael Penn (Sean's brother, I believe).

Any movie that relies on Harold Gould for respectability is probably in trouble. But it's fun and light-hearted, has a good soundtrack, and isn't mean-spirited, unlike so many other teen comedies. 103 minutes of big-hair 80's nostalgia! Rated PG-13.

What a fun movie with outstanding music! While it IS an 80s movie, I think you will find a slightly more tolerable rating on your Eighties-Cheese-O-Meter.

The first time I saw PLAYING FOR KEEPS was in a dark and dirty movie theater in Queens, New York. It was the 80s and I was a rebellious teen who judged every movie by its references to Michael Jackson, Cindy Lauper and break dancing. Now that my brain is no longer infected by the "80s-Lack-of-Common-Sense-and-Good-Taste" Virus, I like the movie. in fact, I like it a lot. Now I understand that the producers were poking fun at 80s mentality I held in such high regard.

If I had to pick a fault it would be the slowness in the middle of the film, but the rest of the movie makes up for it. Also, I wish the set designer threw away his 80s color wheel when he designed the set for the final, climactic, party sequence.

Overall, Playing for Keeps is a fun movie with great music and a very sexy Marisa Tomei. If you want to have a good time and listen to some great music I recommend purchasing Playing for Keeps and adding it to your library.

I wouldn't be surprised if this movie became a cult classic.

You've just graduated from your inner-city New York high school and the future looks bleak. What do you do? You open up a rock n' roll hotel, that's what!

Daniel Jordano, Matthew Penn and Leon W. Grant are three streetwise teens who find adult life to be a bit tough. After visiting an employment office, the athletic Spikes (Penn) is offered a bicycle delivery job. The always dancing Silk (Grant) is given the chance to work his moves as a janitor. Meanwhile their daydreaming (and always positive) best pal, Danny (Jordano), has just quit his job and finds out that one of his deceased relatives has left a dilapidated hotel in the country with $8,000 in taxes to his mother.

After a hokey money-raising scheme proves successful, Danny and his friends pay off the taxes and decide to renovate the clunker into a rock n' roll resort. Unfortunately for them, one of the town's leaders has plans of his own for the hotel. He uses smalltown politics and good old-fashioned bully tactics to try and force the three out of there dream.

The plot of the film is downright cheesy. As I watched the film, I kept thinking to myself, "Why am I still watching this?" Yet for some odd reason, I found myself enjoying "Playing For Keeps" much more than I should have. It's so hokey that it's actually fun to watch. Be prepared for random song and dance sequences and a few hilarious dream sequences as well.

The trio at the forefront of the film do a decent job with their performances. Granted, there's not much to work with here, but they at least make the film likeable. Marisa Tomei has a decent supporting role as Spikes' girlfriend. She's featured on the DVD case as well, which is an obvious attempt to draw in buyers since she's the biggest name in the film (but was a relative nobody at the time of the film's release). Mary B. Ward plays Chloe, Danny's love interest in the film. Also of note is the always-reliable Harold Gould as Rockerfeller, a homeless man living in the hotel. Robert Milli does a stand-up job as Cromwell, the primary villain in this flick.

It's written and directed by Harvey and Bob Weinstein with an additional writing credit given to Jeremy Leven. It's also the first film from Miramax (the Weinstein's company). It's rated PG-13 due to a bit of strong language, a little sexuality and one brief, lowlighted incidence of nudity from Ward's character, Chloe. Parents might want to preview this film before letting youngsters watch it.

It should also be noted that this film features an excellent soundtrack that features Phil Collins, Pete Townshend, Julian Lennon and solid performances from other pop rock acts from the 80's.

Do I recommend "Playing For Keeps?" Yes and no. I recommend it to people who want to look back on their days in the 80's and who love 80's music. I also recommend it to fans of very lighthearted teen comedies. Other than people who fit those categories, however, I only mildly recommend this film as a rental. You won't feel as if you've wasted your entire evening, but you could probably come up with a few things to do that you would have enjoyed more.