Courtesy | gerardbutler.net

I usually start with a bit of exposition before dishing out critiques on a film, but for this review I’m compelled to come out swinging — “Playing for Keeps” is one of the most pointless productions I’ve ever seen. I am not a proponent of rom-coms that embrace formula for the sake of showing off pretty faces and accentuated drama. This movie is on a whole new level of bad. Some light-hearted comedies can use predictability and uninspired plots to create a sense of harmless fun, like “You’ve Got Mail” or “Sabrina.” In “Playing for Keeps,” the absurd lengths to which cliches are used makes me wonder why it wasn’t straight to DVD — and then I remember it has a cast of A-list actors who must’ve had nothing better to do.

Film lacks sincere emotion

In “Playing for Keeps,” washed-up Scottish soccer star and self-proclaimed narcissist George (Gerard Butler) comes to the United States in hopes of becoming an ESPN commentator. In the process, he also seeks to reconnect with his ex-wife Stacie (Jessica Biel) and son Lewis (Noah Lomax), who barely knows him. After Stacie agrees that George is allowed to get better acquainted with Lewis, he lands the coaching job for Lewis’s local soccer team. The team parents — like the eccentric millionaire Carl (Dennis Quaid) — fawn awkwardly over George and his past career. Stereotypical soccer moms seek to seduce George at every turn, including Denise (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Patti (Uma Thurman).

Not a bad bare-bones story for a run of the mill comedy, but what “Playing for Keeps” fails to do is expand on anything but George’s half-hearted attempts to embrace adulthood after being a pampered athlete. George isn’t a bad guy, just someone I have a hard time rooting for. What is so important about this period in George’s life that I would want to sit down for an hour and 40 minutes to watch it? Sure, he’s trying to piece his marriage back together and be present in his son’s life, but there is no sincere emotion behind these motives.

Characters empty and pathetic

It’s always interesting to see the child characters in a movie displaying maturity that far exceeds that of the adults. The various moms who go after George are portrayed as sex-starved cougars, contributing to a rather misogynistic undertone that lasts for most of the movie. If George was to follow through on every flirtation that came his way, “Playing for Keeps” would have become an endless sequence of hook-ups. Most of the women that pursue him are either divorced or unhappy with their marriages because they’re with jerks like Carl — what a sad basis for scenes in “Playing for Keeps” that are intended to be funny.

The intentions of these characters are empty and pathetic, except for Stacie, who Biel plays well as an innocent Virginian girl resisting the wild life that George once provided her in favor of a quiet, comfortable one with her son. The fact that George still has his foot in the door with her proves how unrealistic this plot becomes, all for the sake of painting George as a lovable guy. Lomax plays Lewis in believable ways, from the way he reacts to his father’s reappearance into his life to the tension he can see between George and Stacie.

“Playing for Keeps” is sloppy, under-developed, uninteresting and just flat-out not entertaining. The actors seem to be on some form of auto-pilot in the ways they handle their roles. I wonder what goes through the minds of the studio heads who oversee these kinds of projects? I can understand family releases and silly romantic comedies for the holiday season, but what was expected to be achieved by this? Maybe it could pass as a valid date movie, but even by stock standards “Playing for Keeps” makes “Sleepless in Seattle” look like “Schindler’s List.” Even on a weekend when it was the only major release, I don’t doubt it will still be beat out by movies from prior weeks.