Reviews

Here's a thread for reviews for Playing For Keeps.

Variety Review:

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117948788/

Playing for Keeps
By Justin Chang

A modestly affecting reconciliation drama wrapped in a so-so sports movie by way of a misogynistic romantic comedy, "Playing for Keeps" can't stop tripping all over itself. Returning to Hollywood filmmaking after his 2010 Italian laffer "Kiss Me Again," helmer Gabriele Muccino doesn't go as spectacularly astray as he did in 2008's "Seven Pounds," but this cluttered tale of a past-his-prime soccer player trying to win back his ex-wife and son still hits too many false notes to realize its core emotional potential. Toplined by Gerard Butler but distinguished by Jessica Biel, the FilmDistrict release should score middling returns.
An opening sequence uses cleverly degraded faux-video footage to show studly George Dryer (Butler) at the mid-'90s height of his soccer career. Several years later, he's living in a Virginia suburb, struggling to make the rent and attempting to re-establish a connection with his former wife, Stacie (Biel), and their young son, Lewis (Noah Lomax).

Stacie, who's about to remarry, has made peace with George, and encourages him to spend time with his son. Conveniently enough, Lewis' soccer team needs a coach, and his deadbeat dad fits the bill perfectly. Too perfectly: George proves popular not just with the kids, but with their single and/or unhappily married moms, who just can't get enough of the tousle-haired athlete and his irresistible accent.

It's at this point that "Playing for Keeps," after barreling along in conventional but inoffensive fashion, devolves into an unfunny parade of female sexpots, mystifyingly played by actresses one would have assumed to be well above this level of mistreatment. Robbie Fox's flailing script contrives to have George fend off the advances of a weepy, clingy divorcee (Judy Greer), a frustrated housewife (Uma Thurman) and, worst of all, a scheming temptress (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who just so happens to be in a position to land George an ESPN sportscaster gig. One half expects Jennifer Connelly to turn up as a lovelorn FIFA referee.

These caricatures achieve little, apart from perhaps flattering star-producer Butler's vanity, and they hardly leave the viewer in a receptive mood for the more tolerable bonding scenes between George and Lewis, who has clearly inherited some of his dad's soccer genes. While Butler and young Lomax build an engaging enough rapport, Muccino, who dealt with father-son relations much more sensitively in "The Pursuit of Happyness," seems content to turn Lewis' feelings on and off at will, dramatizing his plight with all the emotional commitment of a light switch.

Butler, playing his second athletic father figure of the season (after "Chasing Mavericks"), is solid enough, and gets to speak with his native brogue, though his scruffy, mildly charming meathead routine is starting to wear thin. It's Biel who almost singlehandedly elevates the picture to a realm of honest feeling: Providing a classy corrective to her ill-served distaff co-stars, the actress makes her character smart, tough, yet still achingly vulnerable, signaling years of long-suffering backstory with her eyes alone. Biel is so good that, when the time inevitably comes for Stacie to choose between the two men in her life, one yearns for her to consider herself first.

Despite its relatively straightforward story elements, "Playing for Keeps" never coheres, undone by its wobbly tone and weakness for tidily artificial moments and plot developments. Tech credits are as generic as the pic's title (changed from the racier original, "Playing the Field").

Camera (Technicolor, widescreen), Peter Menzies; editor, Padraic McKinley; music, Andrea Guerra; production designer, Daniel T. Dorrance; art director, Bob Danyla; set decorator, Kristin Bicksler; costume designer, Angelica Russo; sound (Dolby Digital), Steve C. Aaron; supervising sound editor, Robert C. Jackson; re-recording mixers, Leslie Shatz, Gabriel J. Serrano; special effects coordinator, Blake "Tricky" Levasseur; visual effects supervisors, Danail Hadzhiyski, Alexander Valev, Dusty Emerson; visual effects producer, Scott Coulter; visual effects, Worldwide FX; stunt coordinator, Gregg Brazzel; associate producers, Danielle Robinson, Andy Berman, Margaret Coll; assistant director, Richard L. Fox; casting, Denise Chamian. Reviewed at Wilshire screening room, Beverly Hills, Nov. 15, 2012. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 105 MIN.

The Hollywood Reporter review:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/playing-keeps/review/393549


Playing for Keeps: Film Review

The Bottom Line
Attractive actors can’t redeem a sodden script.

Opens
Friday, Dec. 7

Director
Gabriele Muccino

Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Dennis Quaid co-star in director Gabriele Muccino's romantic comedy.

A few years ago, screenwriter Robbie Fox was a Little League coach who noticed he was getting a lot of unsolicited attention from the mothers of his young players. That was the genesis of Playing for Keeps, with the sport changed to soccer and Gerard Butler cast as a former pro player coaching his son’s team and fending off amorous assaults from a bevy of soccer moms. This is a good premise for a comedy, but somewhere along the way, it got diluted and turned into a sappy, feel-good story of family togetherness. Butler’s fans may help to draw an audience for the film in its opening weekend, but it will be gone by 2013. This one’s no keeper.

George Dryer (Butler) has retired from international soccer and relocates to Virginia to try to re-connect with his son and his ex-wife, Stacie (Jessica Biel), who is engaged to a new man. It’s never quite clear why George is so strapped for cash that he can’t even pay rent, but he’s hoping to re-invent himself as a sportscaster. He gets roped into coaching his son’s team and finds that the position improves his relationship with the boy (appealing Noah Lomax). An unexpected perk is that the soccer moms — who include Uma Thurman, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Judy Greer — find him ruggedly attractive and start treating him as a sex toy to spice up their boring suburban lives. George doesn’t quite have the fortitude to throw them out of bed, but they become a growing distraction to his primary goals.

The early comic scenes with the soccer moms are the movie’s most promising, but the picture quickly drops the sexual byplay for more dreary scenes of father-son bonding and domestic turmoil. Like many movies these days, the film has half a dozen producers (including Jonathan Mostow, a formidable director in his own right), and the script was probably emasculated by too many interfering hands trying to juggle all the disparate themes. George’s character would have been far more interesting if he were a little more jazzed by all the female attention, but in a misguided effort to win sympathy for him, he’s totally passive as the women throw themselves at him and practically tear his clothes off. Since womanizing was what ruined George’s marriage, it would have been more honest to acknowledge a randier side to his character.

Another drawback of this wavering tone is that most of the actors are stranded with one-note characters to play. Greer and Zeta-Jones are still fun to watch. Zeta-Jones in particular gives a delectable performance as a sexy minx who dangles her connections with ESPN to charm George out of his pants. But Thurman’s role is completely underdeveloped. In one scene she’s the imperious hostess at a neighborhood party, and in the next she’s a panting sex fiend who turns up in George’s guest house in black bra and panties. Most of the supporting players in this movie have way too little to do. Dennis Quaid brings flair to his early scenes as the cocky community big shot, but when he bewilderingly ends up in jail after a scene clearly left on the cutting-room floor, he virtually vanishes from the movie. The worst victim of this wobbly script is James Tupper as Stacie’s fiancé. He stands in the background looking supportive and barely gets to utter a line, so there’s no suspense about which man will ultimately win Stacie’s affections. Even Ralph Bellamy in The Awful Truth or His Girl Friday had more personality when he played the other man waiting to be dumped.

If this were a romantic comedy of the 1930s, all the secondary characters would be much more richly developed to do justice to the talents of the great actors under studio contract. Nowadays, however, everything is built around stars, and the supporting actors flounder. With a cast as good as this one, that’s a crying shame. And how do the stars fare? Italian director Gabriele Muccino has a gift for finding depth in actors not always known for subtlety. He drew winning performances from Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds, and he does equally skillful work with Butler in this movie. It’s one of the actor’s most rounded and engaging performances, and it might have been even better if the script had allowed him to express lust as well as befuddlement and paternal concern. Biel is less fortunate. Her role is underwritten; she has no identity aside from that of concerned mother, and the actress doesn’t quite convince us that she’s a prize worth fighting for.

Technical credits are solid. Louisiana actually doubled for Virginia, but the suburban locations are warmly inviting. The score is a bit soupy, befitting this well meaning but antiseptic portrayal of middle-aged malaise.

The reviews are starting to come in. BTW, I was invited to a free Dallas screening last night but didn't attend. It wasn't convenient for me and it looks mediocre so I didn't make the effort to go. But I sometimes like predictable, fluff movies, so maybe I would have attended if it was another time. I have to be in the right mood. There are several other movies coming out that I would rather see. I'll be interested to see what members who see this movie think....

Monterey Herald review:

http://www.montereyherald.com/movies/ci_22131288/playing-keeps-showcase-butlers-charm

'Playing for Keeps' a showcase for Butler's charm
By MICK LASALLE

There really is no point to seeing "Playing for Keeps" unless you would like to have sex with Gerard Butler, or would like to be Gerard Butler, or think, at least, that life inside his shoes would be interesting. As a movie, it's not much. But it's the best showcase for his charm that Butler has ever had.

In fact, the movie doesn't merely showcase his charm; its deficiencies work to highlight it. An hour into "Playing for Keeps," you might wake up to realize vaguely that nothing much has happened, but you might also realize that it has taken a full hour to notice, and start to mind.

Until then, it's pleasant enough to watch this guy ambling and stumbling through life, and the fact that a succession of beautiful co-stars — Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, Judy Greer and Catherine Zeta-Jones — are ambling along with him doesn't hurt one bit.

This time he plays a former soccer star, but the main thing to know is that he plays a big handsome Scot, which is what he is, though he has rarely been Scottish on screen.

His Scottish accent is rugged and sounds as if he is enunciating despite having a golf ball in his mouth, so you know he's tough.

Now years past his glory days on the field, George (Butler) is a fish out of water living in Virginia, in order to be close to his ex-wife (Biel) and young son.

Usually movies are about people who desperately want something, but for most of "Playing for Keeps," our hero doesn't seem to want
anything in particular, but rather a lot of things a little.
He needs money and would like to find satisfying work, maybe as a sportscaster. He wants to have a better relationship with his son, who hardly knows him.

He takes on the job of coaching his son's soccer team, but this is no sports movie about a driven coach. And he seems like he might like to get back with his wife, but he's not losing sleep over her.

George is just not a person who makes things happen. He's a big lug that things just happen to, and it really does take cinematic charm to make passivity interesting.

For a trifle — one that probably looked like one on the printed page, too — "Playing for Keeps" somehow attracted a strong cast.

Dennis Quaid appears makes a vivid impression as a touchy-feely, hyper-emotional businessman. Judy Greer is very funny as a fragile but erotically driven, newly divorced woman. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a former TV personality — one as seductive as Cleopatra.

And Uma Thurman plays an unhappy wife who shows up half-naked in Butler's bed. Of course, he resists. That man is a saint.

Actually, with all the world available to him, the soccer champ's growing preoccupation with his ex-wife becomes mystifying, especially in that Biel has a drab role.

But Biel does get to act here, and she does quite well, working a careful line that keeps you wondering whether she is over this guy or just protecting herself. It's a nice performance.GO!

L.A. Times review:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-box-office-playing-for-keeps-gerard-butler-20121206,0,1363370.story

Gerard Butler won't score at box office with 'Playing for Keeps'

After Gerard Butler's latest film flops at the box office this weekend, the actor could be benched from Hollywood's A team.

Butler's cold streak at the multiplex is set to continue with "Playing for Keeps," a soccer-themed romantic comedy that may debut with only around $6 million, according to those who have seen pre-release industry surveys.

As the only new movie opening this weekend, "Playing for Keeps" will be routed by a handful of holdovers. "Skyfall," the James Bond flick entering its fourth weekend in theaters, may reclaim the No. 1 position from the final "Twilight" installment, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2." Both pictures are expected to bring in a bit more than $10 million this weekend.

Meanwhile, "Playing for Keeps" will post one of the worst openings for a romantic comedy this year. The lowest debut for a romcom so far in 2012 has been "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," the quirky film starring Keira Knightley and Steve Carrell, which launched with only $3.8 million in June.

Butler, 43, has had a rough couple of years at the box office. After he rose to fame in the sword-and-sandals epic "300" in 1997, many in Hollywood thought he had the potential to be the kind of leading man who could appeal to both men and women. His romantic comedies, including "The Ugly Truth" and "The Bounty Hunter," have fared pretty well, all grossing more than $50 million.

It doesn't appear "Playing for Keeps" will come close to hitting that mark. Instead, the movie will likely follow in the footsteps of "Chasing Mavericks," Butler's October surfing drama that grossed only $5.8 million.

The actor's latest film, which on Thursday had scored a rare 0% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, was financed by Avi Lerner’s Millennium Films and is being distributed in the U.S. by FilmDistrict.

Meanwhile, Open Road Films is re-releasing its Jake Gyllenhaal cop drama "End of Watch" this weekend. The movie, which was playing in about 70 theaters last weekend, will expand to 1,200 locations nationwide this weekend. Open Road is hoping the well-reviewed movie will come back to the fore as award season kicks into high gear.

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/movie-review-gerard-butlers-playing-for-keeps-one-of-years-worst-548010.html

Movie Review: Gerard Butler’s Playing for Keeps one of year’s worst
Dec 6, 2012


This is supposed to be the time of year when high-quality movies come out, whether they’re potential Oscar contenders or crowd-pleasing family fare.

So the presence of flat, hacky, unfunny dreck like “Playing for Keeps” — the kind of film that ordinarily tries to fly under the radar in January or February but would be torture to sit through in any month — is a total mystery.

It is truly baffling that all the talented, acclaimed actors involved actually read this script and then agreed to devote their time to this movie, especially given its uncomfortably flagrant misogynistic streak. Judy Greer, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Uma Thurman couldn’t possibly need work this badly. And yet, here they are as soccer moms shamelessly throwing themselves at Gerard Butler and his tousled, manly mane.

The Scottish hunk, still struggling with comedy following “The Ugly Truth” and “The Bounty Hunter,” stars as George Dryer, a once-great soccer star who’s now divorced and in financial straits.

At the film’s start, he has moved to suburban Virginia to reconnect with his ex-wife, Stacie (Jessica Biel), and their young son, Lewis (Noah Lomax). Naturally, a couple of things happen pretty quickly, accompanied by an intrusively jaunty score. First, George gets suckered into coaching his kid’s soccer team. Then, the mothers of all the other 9-year-olds start brazenly hitting on him, regardless of whether they’re married or single. They’re just so wildly hormonal, they can’t control themselves.

Director Gabriele Muccino, who’s had mixed results with Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happiness” and “Seven Pounds,” veers awkwardly between wacky hijinks and facile sentimentality, and Robbie Fox’s script doesn’t feature a single character who resembles an actual human being. George is weirdly indifferent in the face of all this attention, the low point of which finds Thurman as a married socialite sneaking into his bed in a black bra and panties to seduce him in the middle of the night.

Then there’s Greer, usually a standout comedian who can do nothing with her flimsy role as a needy, stalky divorcee. Zeta-Jones at least has the benefit of looking stylish and sultry as the former TV personality who uses her connections to woo him. But George doesn’t seem interested in any of these people, so why should we be?

(Ah yes, there’s a whole subplot in which George aspires to be a sports anchor and magically gets a job offer as a soccer analyst on ESPN, despite having zero on-air experience, after just one audition. Because there’s a bounty of TV gigs out there just ripe for the picking. Do you think he’ll leave this family, just as he’s started to bond with them again, and move to Bristol, Conn., to take it???)

The men don’t fare much better. Dennis Quaid is singularly manic and skeevy as Thurman’s husband, a flashy high roller with a wicked jealous streak. And Stacie’s personality-free fiance (James Tupper) apparently has no job, friends or interests, but rather hangs around the house all day waiting to answer the front door disapprovingly when George arrives to pick up his son.

The one woman with an actual backbone and sense of values in this movie is Biel’s character. Unfortunately, she’s also rendered as bland, conservative and, oddly, a little frumpy. It’s difficult to tell what sort of magic these two forged together years ago and flat-out impossible to care whether they’ll reconcile, although — spoiler! — that’s just one of the many elements of the lazy, formulaic game plan in play here.

Zero stars out of four

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20121205/GPG0503/312060115/Review-Butler-takes-air-out-soccer-story?nclick_check=1

Review: Butler takes the air out of soccer story

Our rating:1½ stars



The oddly unsatisfying big screen career of Gerard Butler takes another unfortunate turn with “Playing for Keeps,” a sexualized romantic comedy built around kids’ soccer. It makes its way into theaters as Butler’s last effort, “Chasing Mavericks,” beats a hasty retreat to home video.

“Keeps” has Butler dialing down his swagger and charisma when the whole movie is utterly reliant on both. As a divorced ex-jock who needs to grow up and be a father to his kid, this guy should be all testosterone, wallowing in past glory and the sexual conquests that made him a soccer legend and, we’re led to believe, ended his marriage.

But whatever edge George Dryer had in Robbie Fox’s script, Butler has rubbed off. He’s at his most charming here, pandering to his female fan base. More’s the pity, because that base is shrinking by the hour.
George is a Scot whose playing days are over. Broke and longing for a shot at a TV sportscasting career, he’s moved to northern Virginia where his ex (Jessica Biel) and their son (Noah Lomax) live.

The kid’s into soccer since, as George notes, “It’s in your blood.” He and his team just need proper coaching, something the cellphone dads of suburban Washington can’t provide.

So George takes over.

That’s when the soccer moms come around. Some are single, some aren’t. Barb (the adorable Judy Greer) breaks into tears every time she questions the coach about her son, but she’s not above throwing herself at the guy. Nor is the vivacious manhunter Denise (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

Dennis Quaid is a rich backslapper who uses George’s celebrity to impress clients, but whose neglected wife (Uma Thurman) could use a little Scotch — or a big strapping Scot.

Meanwhile, George is making a heartfelt, sentimental play for the ex-wife, who is about to remarry and isn’t hearing it.

There’s a time-honored tradition of action heroes and leading men reviving their careers with movies filled with kids. Dwayne Johnson (“The Game Plan,” “The Tooth Fairy”) has done it repeatedly. Even Jeff Bridges was reduced to playing a girls’ gymnastics coach in “Stick It,” before winning his Oscar and staging a comeback.

But most of these guys had the good sense not to build those dreams on the guy who wrote “So I Married an Axe Murderer.”

A few performers stand out here, with Greer, Thurman and Quaid landing the laughs. But Gabriele (“Seven Pounds”) Muccino’s direction is an uncomfortable mush of sentimental and sexy.

All those kids on the set, those long game sequences and the star’s determination to play safe and sweet and nice rob “Keeps” of its potential. A swaggering ex-jock who needs to get over his womanizing isn’t the passive, put-upon sexual patsy that Butler plays here — helpless in the presence of a beautiful woman.

This could have been a saucy “What Women Want,” with just a smattering of soccer. The emphasis on the kids and “the beautiful game” make “Playing for Keeps” a new “Kicking & Screaming,” but without Will Ferrell. And even he wouldn’t want to see that.

Newsday Review:

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/playing-for-keeps-review-tepid-romance-1.4296235

Review: 'Playing for Keeps'Plot: A washed-up soccer star returns home to coach his boy's team.

Bottom line: Glimmers of real drama, plus a strong performance by Biel, lift this romantic comedy a smidgen above the usual stuff, but don't worry -- the usual stuff is in here, too.

Cast: Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Uma Thurman

Length: 1:35

2 Out of 4 Stars

'Playing for Keeps' review: Tepid romance

By RAFER GUZMÁN rafer.guzman@newsday.com


Perhaps different people got different memos while making "Playing for Keeps," a romantic comedy starring Gerard Butler as George Dryer, a '90s-era soccer star who begins coaching his son's team and finds that soccer moms are his new groupies. Half the actors realize they're in a bit of Hollywood fluff, but others deliver emotional performances worthy of a serious drama. As for Butler, well, it's hard to say exactly what he's doing.

The result is a schizophrenic movie that veers from surprisingly compelling to unsurprisingly formulaic. The latter is mostly due to George, known as "King" George until an ankle injury sent him back to Virginia, where his ex-wife, Stacie (Jessica Biel), is raising their 9-year-old, Lewis (first-timer Noah Lomax). While she prepares to wed nice-guy Matt (James Tupper), George tries to win her back.

But these darned sex-starved mothers keep getting in the way! One is Barb, a fragile weeper played by a very funny Judy Greer ("The Descendants"); another is Denise (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a former sportscaster who tempts George with a possible job at ESPN; and there's wealthy Patti (Uma Thurman, playing to the house), who's married to a manic businessman (Dennis Quaid).

So far, so typical, but Biel unexpectedly digs deep into Stacie. "If you love me, let me go," she sobs -- a not-so-original line, but delivered with such conviction that Butler appears to physically shrink from her. Lomax is also quite moving as their vulnerable, wounded son. Butler cakewalks charmingly, but he seems outdone on both sides.

Eventually, director Gabriele Muccino ("The Pursuit of Happyness"), writer Robbie Fox and everyone else get on the same page. "Playing for Keeps" ends with the requisite smiles and tears.


PLOT A washed-up soccer star returns home to coach his boy's team. RATING PG-13 (mild language and sexual content)

CAST Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Uma Thurman

LENGTH 1:35

BOTTOM LINE Glimmers of real drama, plus a strong performance by Biel, lift this romantic comedy a smidgen above the usual stuff, but don't worry -- the usual stuff is in here, too.

Slant Magazine review:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/playing-for-keeps/6727

Playing for Keeps

½ star out of 4

To bring you up to speed on sentimental sports-centric weepies circa Oscar season 2012, Clint Eastwood's withered major league scout may have had trouble with the curve, but Gerard Butler's former soccer star can still bend bored suburban cougars like Beckham. In Playing for Keeps, Butler turns on the sensitive swagger as George Dryer, a legend whose gravy train has dried up, leaving him with a string of debt and weekend custody of Lewis (Noah Lomax), the withdrawn young boy who subconsciously yearns for his father to reunite with Stacie (Jessica Biel), George's estranged ex. While chasing his last-resort dream of parlaying his cachet into a gig as a sportscaster, George somewhat belatedly tries to ingratiate himself with his skeptical ex-family by coaching Lewis's junior soccer team, a gang of kids that, for 10 seconds, the movie seems to be positioning as an upper-class Bad News Bears before realizing it would rather focus on their selfish parents.


Blessed with too much disposable income and too little time to do anything other than answer their urgent cell phone calls to ensure the former keeps flowing, each parent sees in George the chance to nuzzle up to a celebrity. He may be a has-been, but he still thrills the likes of Carl (Dennis Quaid), a wheeler and dealer who constantly looks on the verge of a jealous stroke; Patti (Uma Thurman), his champagne-swilling trophy wife whose flirtations with younger, more attractive lunkheads have evidently left a trail of assaulted would-be paramours; Barb (Judy Greer), an eggshell-fragile divorcee who practically exhales tears of preemptive rejection; and Denise (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a bombshell ex-sportscaster whose, um, needs may just hold the key to jumpstarting George's future career. Each and every one of these figures isn't treated as characters so much as landmines in George's path toward reconciliation. Screenwriter Robbie Fox, whose last major credit was 1993's So I Married an Axe Murderer, still clearly has an axe to grind with housewives, and none are given the dignity the film generously heaps on poor, recalcitrant womanizer George, who would clearly be able to get his life back on track if it weren't for all those manicured nails dipping for gold behind his 34-inch belt.


At the same time, director Gabriele Muccino, who admittedly did the world the favor of exposing Will Smith's most self-serving impulses with The Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds, accentuates Fox's double standard by imposing a hierarchy on George's temptations. Having given Greer a pity screw and let Zeta-Jones wrap those Entrapment legs around his neck, Muccino insists the audience take George at face value when he assures Stacie—while she's at the final fitting for the dress she intends to wear while marrying Mr. Safe Choice, like, tomorrow—that she was always the only one for him. Biel's constant exasperation with the situation elevates her above the mire, but Playing for Keeps (which went into production under the title Playing the Field, and the disparity between the two says everything about the movie's emotional dissonance you need to know) is knee deep in "don't hate the player, hate the game" territory, no more so than when George nearly loses it all in the 11th hour because of the one woman he didn't f**k.

I just read that this film wasn't screened for critics.

Neither was The Bounty Hunter.

Hollywood Reporter:
(BTW, I have read the $6 million opening weekend estimate several places.)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-preview-gerard-butlers-399157


Box Office Preview: Gerard Butler's 'Playing for Keeps' Likely to Flop


Gerard Butler is facing another tough weekend at the box office.

Following October flop Chasing Mavericks, Butler's soccer-themed romantic comedy Playing for Keeps might open only in the $6 million range, not enough to beat a strong crop of holdovers, including the James Bond pic Skyfall.

FilmDistrict acquired U.S. distribution rights to the movie in 2011. Directed by Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness), the story follows the travails of a washed-up soccer star who hopes to redeem himself by coaching his son's soccer team but falls prey to desirable single moms.

Butler, whose next film is White House action pic Olympus Has Fallen, has a mixed record at the box office since 300 made him a Hollywood star, grossing $456.1 million worldwide in spring 2007. His highest-grossing film since is The Ugly Truth ($205.2 million).

Last year, both Coriolanus and Machine Gun Preacher flopped at the domestic box office.

Both this weekend and last mark the lull before the Christmas crush begins with the Dec. 14 release of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

New releases at the specialty box office this weekend include Focus Features' historical drama Hyde Park on the Hudson, starring Bill Murray as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Laura Linney as Eleanor Roosevelt.
.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/dont-let-gerard-butler-fool-you-fatherhood-isnt-about-being-sexy/265999/

Don't Let Gerard Butler Fool You: Fatherhood Isn't About Being Sexy

Playing for Keeps recycles tired, flawed lessons about masculinity.

I played soccer in high school; I was a very mediocre second-stringer on a mediocre team out in northeastern Pennsylvania, where the level of play in the mid-'90s was, as you might imagine, not all that high to begin with. Still, I know how you're supposed to kick a ball and what offsides is, so when I was asked to coach my son's soccer team, I felt like I probably should. Alas, the team was dreadful. My coaching skills were certainly not up to overcoming the talent deficit, and my efforts to suggest possible administrative alternatives (like switching players around, as the league was obviously unbalanced) were met with stonewalling by the league and open hostility from other parents. Overall, it was one of the more depressing episodes of my time as a parent; all the more so because of its pettiness. The sense of pitiful, trivial, all-pervading inadequacy was disconcertingly similar to the feeling I had when I was dating—a sensation which, after meeting my wife, I had fervently hoped never to revisit.

In Playing For Keeps, out today, George Dryer, like me, is asked to coach his son's soccer team—but the similarity pretty much ends there. Dryer, played by the raffishly scruffy Gerard Butler, is an internationally renowned soccer star, and his brilliant advice (like "kick with the laces, not with the toe") quickly turns the hapless Cyclones into a band of gritty, goal-scoring winners. For this manly competence, George receives the usual cinematic reward. Dads press cash and Ferraris into his hands; moms who look improbably like A-list Hollywood stars take turns throwing themselves at his nether regions.

But it's not all effortless victory and copulating for our hero. George has problems, too. At the start of the film, he's got no job, few prospects, and can't even pay the rent on his dinky little guest house. His past alpha-male antics (in his time "that man got more ass than a toilet" as one friend puts it) have seriously damaged his relationship with his ex-wife, Stacie (Jessica Biel), and his son, Lewis (Noah Lomax). He's moved to Virginia to try to reconnect with them, only to discover that Stacie is about to remarry.

The film, then, is about how coaching soccer helps George to become a good man and a good father. Everybody learns something, hearts are warmed, those who are so inclined are given the opportunity to gaze upon Gerard Butler's abs, and those with the alternate proclivity are given the opportunity to see Uma Thurman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Judy Greer project availability. What red-blooded man could object to that?

That is sort of the issue. Feminism has given women a way to deconstruct idealized images on screen, to understand the media's manipulation of bodies, desire, and jealousy as both political and aggressive. Men, though, haven't developed the same analytical resources. You hear about how Bella Swan in Twilight is a bad role model for girls, or how Julia Roberts in Pretty Women is a bad image for women. But men on screen are rarely seen as bad role models, or good role models. They're just more or less attractive fantasies. If you as a man find James Bond oppressive—well, that just shows what kind of man you are. Or, rather, aren't.

You can tell what kind of man I am, then, by the fact that I identified in the film not with that scamp George, but with Stacie's clean-shaven, nice-guy goober second-husband-to-be, Matt (James Tupper). Rooting for Matt isn't easy; the film gives him no abs to speak of, no soccer skills, and the personality of a stump. Stacie tells George at one point that Matt makes her laugh, but we never see him do so—nor do we ever see Matt interacting in any but the most perfunctory way with Lewis. Matt's not world-famous. He keeps his dick in his pants. He involves himself in the day-to-day tasks of raising a child. Ergo, he's boring and no one could possibly care about him. Let's go watch George do something sexily irresponsible again!

The movie does flirt with the idea of having George suffer some sort of consequences for his years of neglect and priapism. But that's just the standard rom-com tease. He's in the title role, he's got that wounded smile—how can he lose? In one of his final lines of the film, George says he's learned the importance of being there—but Matt was there, too, and more often—and, really, could probably be expected to be there more responsibly and consistently in the future as well. George's charm isn't that he's there. It's his athleticism and his good looks and arguably most of all his faithlessness.

If fidelity and responsibility were what mattered, Matt would get the happy ending. But he hardly ever does. Every so often you'll get some sweet guy hero like Lloyd in Say Anything. But more often you're presented with supposedly charming fixer-upers, from Han Solo to Richard Gere in Pretty Woman to Eddie Murphy in Boomerang to, again, that ongoing archetype of rakishness James Bond. It's as if the folks who make movies think that even Matt wants to be George—so much so that the faithful goober will cheer for the star even as said star is pissing on him from a great height.

So, on behalf of all the Matts out there, let me take a moment to piss back. It is true, as I said, that my coaching did not transform my son's team. But that's okay, because I don't need world-class athletic prowess to rescue my relationship with my own child, thank you very much. I changed his diapers (more often than his mom, as she'll be the first to admit). I walked up and down with him when he had colic. I wheeled him around the neighborhood from park to park, stuffing Cheerios in his mouth when he got cranky. I make him breakfast (not very well, but still). I hold his inhaler when he has an asthma attack. I schedule playdates. I even use the word "playdate" in public, God help me. And, perhaps most importantly, I didn't need his mom to explain to me how to be a parent like I'm an idiot. I'm a better father, and for that matter a better husband, than George ever was, or than he is ever likely to be, given what we see of him in this film.

That's not a particularly splendid accomplishment or anything. George is an insultingly low standard. Which is all the more reason that husbands, fathers, women, and everyone else should resent being told—in this film and in general—that we should root for this loser. Reformation is great, but I get really tired of hearing that responsibility and faithfulness only really count if you screwed up and screwed around first. Infidelity is not a necessary prelude to masculine maturity, and sports, despite hundreds of films and thousands of beer commercials, just has nothing to do with being a man.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-07/murray-s-randy-roosevelt-gerard-butler-love-daddy-film.html

Murray’s Randy Roosevelt; Gerard Butler, Love Daddy: Film


Gerard Butler
There’s no more point in griping about “Playing for Keeps” than there is in complaining about the slightly overdone slab of medium-grade beef that arrives on your plate at a chain steakhouse. What were you expecting?

What you get here is Gerard Butler as George Dryer, a has- been Scottish footballer who’s moved to Virginia to be near his little boy (Noah Lomax) and his ex-wife (Jessica Biel), who’s about to remarry. I would never, ever reveal what happens.

Soccer Dad
Before anything does, George spends some time turning his son’s lackluster soccer team into champions. Most Little League movies concentrate on how the coach inspires the team. This one shows no interest in the sport or any of the other kids.

Instead it focuses on George’s drab (though busy) sex life. The movie’s one distinction is the trio of good actresses --

Judy Greer, Catherine Zeta-Jones and a bitterly funny Uma Thurman (reprising, with a suburban twist, her “Pulp Fiction” character) -- playing soccer moms who throw themselves at him.

Written by Robbie Fox and directed by Gabriele Muccino, it’s competently made and inoffensive enough. If you were hoping for something more, you came to the wrong film.

“Playing for Keeps,” from FilmDistrict, is playing across the U.S. Rating: ** (Seligman)

NY Post Review:

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/play_keep_away_with_keeps_qrt4FAAvI4JfxzZp6WYStO

Play keep-away with ‘Keeps’

Looking for a way to rebuild his relationship with his son, he gets roped into coaching the boy’s soccer team. But his attempts to finally become an “adult” are met with hilarious challenges from the attractive “soccer moms” who pursue him at every turn. — From the press notes to “Playing for Keeps.”

‘Playing for Keeps” is a “chick flick” in which Gerard Butler attempts to be a “romantic leading man” when we all know he needs to be in a leather “mankini” thrusting spears into rib cages and howling at the gods.

Butler plays George, a former soccer star who is now broke in Virginia, where he is an erratic but big-hearted dad to 9-year-old Lewis (Noah Lomax), whose mom (Jessica Biel) is preparing to remarry. Considering that she spends most of her time getting plastered with George, staring lovingly through rainy windshields at him and expressing chagrin at the way the ladies in town want to jump his bones while panting like overheated bulldogs, it seems fairly obvious where this movie is heading.

George apparently lost millions on foolish business ventures, which should have given a small portent to whoever financed this doomed movie. So he’s no longer such an appropriate husband for Biel’s Stacie, who openly yearns for the days when he could afford to take her to Italian villas. She regains interest in him again when his broadcasting audition tape gets noticed by ESPN, which might want to take him on for his soccer commentary. Assuming he gets paid $100 a minute for his work, this seems to herald a monthly income of roughly $200 given the quantity of soccer news on that network.

Until the inevitable conclusion, mostly the movie is a dull sex comedy about lusty housewives hurling themselves at George, whose best shot at employment is probably reinventing himself as a man whore. Yet George seems oddly neutered. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Judy Greer and Uma Thurman are constantly pressing up against him, showing up at his house after midnight and sending him late-night propositions via e-mail. He barely reacts to any of this. Thurman even shows up in his bed in her undies, and he keeps a respectful distance. How did Lewis get conceived, anyway?

Thurman’s character is married to a local backslapper (Dennis Quaid), a rich guy who gives George a wad of money to buy his kid a starting spot on the team and inexplicably loans the jock his Ferrari so the movie can kill time on some wacky movie behavior with the car, which George teaches his son to drive.

But the boy-dad bonding is no funnier or more convincing than the sex-farce scenes. “Playing for Keeps” is one of those movies that comes “straight from the heart” — the heart of the hack screenwriter’s manual that pushes formulaic structure to cover up a lack of compelling characters, genuine emotion or actual humor. This is an excellent way to get your script approved by studio execs who think the public can’t tell the difference between an “actual movie” and a “rancid piece of garbage.”

kyle.smith@nypost.com

Washington Post Review (the comments are interesting):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/celebritology/post/does-anyone-plan-to-see-gerard-butler-in-playing-for-keeps-this-weekend/2012/12/07/6d716e26-409a-11e2-a2d9-822f58ac9fd5_blog.html

Does anyone plan to see Gerard Butler in ‘Playing for Keeps’ this weekend?

What’s happened to Gerard Butler?

At one time, he was Hollywood’s most beloved bellower thanks to his ability to shout repeatedly about glory in “300.” He was starring in movies with Jennifer Aniston that weren’t very good, but generated a bit of media buzz because, you know, Aniston. And he was developing a strong set of female admirers, including quite a few who read this blog.

But this year, his movie choices have been abysmal. (“Spartans! Prepare for garbage!”)

First he starred in “Chasing Mavericks,” a surf drama that next to no one saw and almost no critic liked. (Rotten Tomatoes rating: 34 percent positive.) Now he’s in the rom-com “Playing for Keeps,” which opens around the country today and so far, has managed to be panned by every member of the media who was paid to watch it. Its ranking on Rotten Tomatoes: 0 percent positive.

After reading the review by the Post’s Ann Hornaday, there is part of me that wants to see this, if only so I can play that time-honored game called “Track the Disappearing Baguette.” But it’s a very small part of me, one that will quickly channel its energy into re-watching “Skyfall” instead.

From a career standpoint, Butler can avoid some of the blame for this movie since it’s an ensemble effort. And within that ensemble, he’s joined by a number of actors who also should have had better things to do, including Uma Thurman, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jessica Biel, who currently must be restraining herself from parading down Hollywood Blvd. while wearing a sandwich board that says “PLEASE SEE ME IN ‘HITCHCOCK’ INSTEAD.”

But unless Butler redeems himself by doing something affably insane in “Movie 43,” that oddity of an indie that comes out in January and stars virtually everyone who has a SAG card, some of his admirers may be go back to what they were doing before Butler came along: focusing on Russell Crowe.

Do you plan to see “Playing for Keeps”? If so, can one write it off on his or her 2012 taxes as a charity contribution to the Save Gerard Butler’s Career Foundation? Please, feel free to discuss these matters in the comments section.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/what-are-you-seeing-this-weekend-hyde-park-deadfall-are-playing-for-keeps-20121207


"Playing For Keeps." Directed by Gabriele Muccino. Starring Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman and Catherine Zeta-Jones. This predictable rom-com is unfocused and syrupy sweet. Metacritic: 30 Rotten Tomatoes: 0%

Aint It Cool News Review:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/59921


Capone says the Gerard Butler-bangs-soccer-moms comedy PLAYING FOR KEEPS deserves a swift kick in the soccer balls!!!

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

Let me just stop you before you even ask the question, Why do you bother seeing--let alone reviewing--a movie like the new attempt at life-affirming romantic comedy PLAYING FOR KEEPS? The answer is painfully simple: because part of my job, my obligation, is to steer you and those you care about clear of this kind of drivel. And rest assured, this movie is 900 percent, often nonsensical drivel.

Let me give you an example of how this story about former soccer star George (Gerard Butler), trying to be a better man as well as a better dad, makes no sense. There's a scene deep into the movie where George arrives home late one night to find Patti (Uma Thurman) in his bed, eager to seduce him. Patti is the wife of one of George's new friends, Carl (Dennis Quaid), the father of one of the kids on a school soccer team that George coaches (his son is also on the team). It has already been established that the philandering Carl has a jealous streak when it comes to his wife, going so far as to having her followed sometimes, including the night she goes to George's house. Despite already having bed a few of the other soccer moms who have thrown themselves at him (including ones played by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Judy Greer), George rejects Patti, and she eventually leaves.

Later in the film, Carl confronts George during a game, claiming he slept with his wife and that his investigator was there that night and saw the whole thing. Assuming there was a P.I. on the case, he would have reported that Patti left un-boinked and that George never even took his shirt off. So why is Carl so angry? Simple, because (in theory but not in practice) it makes for a better comedy bit when George and Carl are rolling around on the ground during their kids' soccer game. It's not funny, and featuring a character that is borderline abusive to his otherwise faithful wife is hardly the best building block for an otherwise feather-light comedy.

And then there's the other, bigger part of PLAYING FOR KEEPS that makes no damn sense. Part of the reason George is back in his son's life again is because he wants to get back together with his ex-wife (Jessica Biel), who is on the verge of getting married to another, very nice man (James Tupper). So essentially, George is using his kid (played by Noah Lomax) to get back in his ex's good graces. At the same time, he really wants to get a sports broadcasting job for ESPN that would likely take him far away from his son, so he's really just giving the boy false expectations about having a dad around during his formative years.

If you've made it this far, you may have come to realize this movie is fucked from the first frame. I'm not sure if the problems were there at the script level or if director Gabriele Muccino (THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, SEVEN POUNDS) is to blame, but it doesn't really matter. The film tries to portray George as a guy who's just down on his luck, but every problem in his life were the result of childish behavior, poor decisions, and just not caring about other people more than he cares about satisfying himself. Even the soccer moms throwing themselves at him comes across as bad luck. Oops, George tripped and his penis just landed in these willing ladies.

I despised pretty much every minute of PLAYING FOR KEEPS, from the severely off-putting story and despicable characters to the pompous attempts at life lessons and the wholly unbelievable ending. Plus George's demo reel and resulting audition reveal he'd be a horrible sportscaster. This character truly has nothing going for him beyond good hair, which is more than I can say for this fiercely loathsome movie. Protect your friends and loved ones from this cruddy mess.

All I have to say is I miss the days of "POTO," "The Jury," "Dear Frankie," and "300."

http://www.newser.com/story/158935/playing-for-keeps-soulless-sexist.html

Playing for Keeps Soulless, Sexist
Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel rom-com: 0% on Tomatometer

(Newser) – Playing for Keeps is generic Hollywood fare, but one thing makes it stand out: As of this writing, it's managed to score a 0% at Rotten Tomatoes, despite a star-studded cast that includes Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Here's what critics are saying about the story of a former soccer star's romantic trials:

* "As Hollywood movies increasingly strive for immaculate blankness, they have come to resemble Rorschach ink blots," writes Mark Jenkins at NPR. As in this film: "Is it a heartwarming romantic drama? Or a cynical sex and sports comedy? There is no wrong answer, dear ticket buyer."

*Here's an answer: It's a "a modestly affecting reconciliation drama wrapped in a so-so sports movie by way of a misogynistic romantic comedy," observes Justin Chang in Variety. "After barreling along in conventional but inoffensive fashion," the film "devolves into an unfunny parade of female sexpots, mystifyingly played by actresses one would have assumed to be well above this level of mistreatment."

* Instead of being funny, "the caricatures are so clumsy that it's more of a nails-on-blackboard experience." writes Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. "A well-toned guy who is good with kids is the ultimate aphrodisiac for sex-starved soccer moms. Three very good actresses are squandered to prove the point."

*To put it simply, Playing for Keeps is "mechanical and exhausting, like a windup toy of a monkey crashing together cymbals for 106 minutes while incrementally winding down," notes Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/playing-for-keeps

Playing For Keeps

by Leonard Maltin

Playing for Keeps is aimed at moviegoers who want to watch attractive people in a lightweight romantic comedy-drama. It won’t be up for any Oscars, nor will it score points for originality, but it’s harmless enough fare for its target audience. If that sounds like a back-handed compliment, it’s the best I can muster.

Gerard Butler is well cast as a onetime soccer star who’s at a low ebb in his life. He’s moved back to Virginia, hoping to make up for lost time with his 9-year-old son (appealing newcomer Noah Lomax)…and still carrying a torch for his ex-wife (Jessica Biel), who’s planning to marry her boyfriend. When Butler volunteers to coach his son’s team, he makes himself a highly visible magnet for a number of soccer moms, both married and single, including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Uma Thurman, and Judy Greer. He also becomes a target for Thurman’s blowhard of a husband, Dennis Quaid.

You can already imagine the misadventures that follow and, if not, the trailer will clue you in. Screenwriter Robbie Fox and director Gabriele Muccino don’t have many surprises in store for us, but it’s all easy to take, and just as easy to forget.

Spoilers included in this review:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/166143-playing-for-keeps-get-me-out-of-here/

'Playing for Keeps': Get Me Out of Here

Sorry, Champ
“What are you doing here?” At the moment, at the start of Playing for Keeps, “here” is a pawnshop in Virginia. And George (Gerard Butler) has something like an answer for the question posed by the proprietor (Ritchie Montgomery), who’s looking over his none-too-impressive selection of soccer jerseys and cleats. He’s here, George says, because his nine-year-old son Lewis (Noah Lomax) is here: dad means to spend some time with him now, having missed most of the boy’s life thus far. And so he needs to sell some of his own gear—worn on the field alongside David Beckham—in order to pay rent. When George complains that the $300 he’s offered isn’t enough, the shop owner nods, then adds he’d do better “If you had some LeBron James.”

George is a has-been, you see, but if he knows he can’t dribble and score, he’s not quite aware of what he means to do other than that. He’s lived for so long off his celebrity that even though he stopped playing back in 2005, following an ankle injury, he’s not yet found another gig. He imagines he might make it to TV, as a sportscaster: after all, he’s got an appealing Scottish brogue and his hair is shaggy. He’s also desperate, a point hammered home when, as he’s recording a sportscasting demo, his concentration is broken by a phone call from a debt collector.

All this is to say that George is “here” in order to be redeemed. At first it’s not clear precisely why he’s here now, until Lewis lets slip that his mom, Stacie (Jessica Biel), is about to be remarried, to Matt (James Tupper), a nice enough but wholly bland fellow. (It doesn’t help that his part is comprised of calling to Stacie from off-screen or hovering in the doorway as George drops Lewis off). It’s not so much that the impending nuptials news motivates George, but it does send this formulaic film grinding into gear.

Grinding is rather an overriding metaphor in Playing for Keeps. This isn’t to say that George can’t drive his vintage Alfa Romeo convertible, but it does make a bit of noise, and he is awfully fond of another prominently placed car, a fire-red Ferrari belonging to Carl (Dennis Quaid), father of one of the kids on the soccer team George starts coaching. Oh, yeah: that would be another instance of grinding, the poundingly convenient local need for a soccer coach, which George fills instantaneously, as he has his own, already noted, needs.

As coach, he not only impresses Carl enough so the older man bestows on him the gift of driving his car, but also Carl’s wife Patti (Uma Thurman) and several other soccer moms, including new divorcée Barb (Judy Greer) and Denise (Catherine Zeta-Jones), an ex-sportscaster who flaunts her various assets, including her lingering connections in the industry. The moms appear as something like a pack, cheering from the bleachers or stalking the sidelines, gossiping and competing amongst themselves, while poor George can only wait for them to show up on his doorstep, one by one. Of course, in such moments he is helpless, waiting for each inevitable clinch and lip-lock and fade to black.

It’s a remarkably tedious business. And as you, in turn, wait for George to be found out, scolded, and summarily forgiven, you might distract yourself by attending to completely un-compelling plot gaps, like, why is Stacie marrying Matt? Why is George unable to contact sports news people himself, given the reactions he solicits wherever he goes? Where did this community find its original soccer coach, whose cell phone is attached to his ear in the two scenes where he appears? What are the other parents thinking, as they watch women fling themselves at George, essentially on the field? Or maybe you can ponder whose bright idea it was to send Carl off into some off-screen drunken brawl, so that he might call George from lock-up, looking rumpled and distraught and wholly uninteresting, and incidentally, in need of bail money. And so Carl sends his new best buddy George—the coach he’s paying off to ensure that his middling player son gets on the field and that his excruciating singer daughter gets to perform the anthem—to pick up a wad of cash at his mansion, where Patti is waiting, teary and eager and—oh my god—what is Uma Thurman doing here?

Of course, you might ask the same of every person on screen, including George’s landlord Param (Iqbal Theba), who asks for his money and then spends the rest of the movie watching George from his window, wondering—out loud, for your benefit—how this guy can score so many beautiful ladies. You might wonder why Param cares and why he’s talking to you, partly serving as your peeping-tommish stand-in and partly as exceedingly un-comic comic relief. You might ask it of Zeta-Jones or Greer, both of whom must have better things to do with their time and careers.

You might especially ask this question of Biel, who long ago made an apparently principled argument about being confined by a role, in order to extricate herself from the role and a contract. You might wonder what her 17-year-old self would say to the self that signed on to play Stacie, confined here to being the girl who must be won back as a part of George’s process. This means she’s in for some montagey business—a happy sequence at a game arcade with Lewis and George, a sadder one where she watches father and son practice soccer in the pouring rain. She also has to make her way through a couple of encounters with George alone, one where he takes her to lunch at a crab place, so she can pound and suck shells as he pledges his troth, and another set in the bridal shop dressing room where she’s trying on her dress—alone. He busts in, pledges some more troth, and she begs him, tearfully, to let her go.

This last is a painful scene in any number of ways, not least being its pile-on of clichés. But a primary pain emerges in watching Biel and Butler, who can, in fact, do their jobs well, being burdened so unjustly and so interminably—because they are, after all, here

http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-12-05/film/playing-for-keeps/


Playing for Keeps

Gerard Butler, playing George, a former soccer great now dodging bill collectors in suburban Virginia, speaks in his natural Scottish accent in the romantic comedy Playing for Keeps. The brogue is remarked upon at least three times, with one character calling it "charming"—which it is, insofar as it distinguishes Butler here from the non-Scottish guys he played in The Ugly Truth (2009) and The Bounty Hunter (2010), rom-coms that we can now pinpoint as the opening salvos of the war on women. Although less hateful than those earlier movies, Playing for Keeps, directed by Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness, Seven Pounds), isn't especially kind to the ladies, either. Three-fourths of the female roles are manipulative, sad soccer moms—of various socioeconomic and marital status—written into the script (by Robbie Fox) only to try to bed recovering philanderer George, who coaches their kids and is trying to make things right with his ex-wife (Jessica Biel) and son, Lewis (Noah Lomax). That Lewis's age in one scene is given as 10, and then, shortly after, nine, gives you a sense of how much care and thought was put into this movie. Yet it's not entirely forgettable. I'll long be haunted by Dennis Quaid's manic performance as a palm-greasing dad who seems to be under the influence of bath salts—tweaked-out acting that matches the camera movements.