Um Bom Partido

Just saw Playing for Keeps at a preview screening last night. Few script surprises in this stock-standard romantic comedy. If you didn't see the end coming in the first 20 minutes, you weren't paying attention. Still, a pleasant date night diversion nonetheless.

Direction and photography were above average. All the actors played their parts up to the very limits of the script. Gerard Butler was quite believable in his role as the womanizing ex- soccer star ready to be a grownup. Female members of the audience voiced their approval of him right on cue throughout the movie. His lifelong real-world enthusiasm for soccer (particularly the Celtics) shone though in quite a number of scenes.

The entourage of swooning soccer moms was also a treat to watch. Judy Greer stole the show in her role as Barb. Her mercurial mood changes were simply hilarious. Dennis Quaid's turn as a mysteriously wealthy local businessman and paranoid husband was a hoot. I can't recall many roles he's played that offered the peculiar mix of affable good guy/sinister bad guy seen here.

Not a chance you'll see this film on stage at Oscar time, but it's worth the price of admission. Recommended.

George Dryer(Gerard Butler) a once great soccer player, he was pretty much the Michael Jordan of that sport. Tries to pick up the pieces of his life after falling on hard times, he is trying to build a realiontship with his son and his ex wife(Jessica Biel), while trying to get a job has a sportscaster, but luck comes in, when he becomes the soccer coach for his sons team.

Gerard Butler does make attempt to put in a good performance, and not play the character has one noted. His scenes with the boy are pretty effective. But everything else pretty much goes nowhere, plots involving Judy Greer, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Uma Thurman are completely bland beyond itself. Dennis Quaid is memorable in spots has the odd billionaire that Butler befriends. But Jessica Biel is out of place here has Butlers ex, her acting says how out of place she is.

I was very much looking forward to seeing this movie because of the stars and supporting roles, as well. I was heartily disappointed. I like Gerard Butler, and enjoyed him in the movie, but the movie was incredibly slow even for me, someone who is not into action movies. But there was too little here. Too many talented women making fools of themselves, and Dennis Quaid was thoroughly wasted as a philandering husband jealous of his wife. Outside of the main characters, all of the roles were flat and without much personality. Butler isn't the only actor who made a mistake to accept this script. Butler and Biel were the only ones with anything to work with, and they did their best, but the script was simply a failure. This was not even good enough for TV, let alone a motion picture. Save your time and money and watch something else! This is one case in which the critics were right. No wonder this was a box office flop.

The best that can be said about Playing for Keeps is that it's a pretty inoffensive, family-friendly dramedy, with a touch of romance thrown in for good measure and a solid experienced cast going through its paces. The worst, is that from the opening minute we sense that everything about the storyline is all too familiar and true enough, everything plays out way too predictably, to provide a satisfying viewing experience.

This is one of those films where you can only just scratch your head and wonder where the supposed $55 million budget went. It must have been the actors' salaries, because the production standards, whilst adequate for a film of this nature, have all the KPI's of your average telemovie.

Gerald Butler is OK, but involves himself in too much of this very run of the mill type fare. Jessica Biel is probably the stand-out for me in amongst a host of derivative, middling characters, but rather cruelly copped an unjust Razzie nomination for her work. That probably would have been much better directed towards Dennis Quaid, who quite simply overacts in his every scene. When you see names like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Uma Thurman, even further relegated down the cast list, you can only shake your head and ponder once more, on how the mighty have fallen, for actors such as they were/are to have engaged themselves with this trite material.

The film is not really funny, has lame dialogue and for a "sports" movie has some rather dull sports footage. But let's not be too hard, as the sport in this case is kids soccer, which at any rate takes very much a back seat, to the family dramas and soccer mums' shennanigans, taking place away from the game.

Playing for Keeps was both a critical and commercial flop. It seems the producers dropped the ball in not even being able to attract their target audience in big numbers. Not hard to understand why. Even families need something a little more substantial than this pedestrian affair to cause them to part with their hard-earned at the box office.

The fact that Playing For Keeps received such poor reviews doesn't surprise me because movie critics are some of the most closed minded individuals on the planet and this movie doesn't fit into one of their predetermined little genres. It is too raunchy to be a family movie, doesn't focus on relationships or drama enough to be a romantic-comedy, doesn't involved enough soccer to be a sports movie, and doesn't have the proper type of humor to be dude movie. What it is, however, is just an all-around decent film. There's nothing great about it but it does everything pretty good. The cast is great, though they are a bit underwhelming and underutilized in the film, and they provide solid performances, albeit a bit cliché. The plot is decent enough to keep you engaged. Is it predictable? Of course it is but so are 99% of movies made nowadays so that's nothing new. All in all, I think most open-minded viewers will enjoy this as a pretty good all-around movie, nothing more, nothing less.