Gerard Butler isn’t Playing for Keeps with his latest

I recently finished picking up and making a huge move across the country. As a result, I haven’t had a television in the longest time. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed it. Not only watching shows and reviewing them, but also just letting my favorites numb out my brain for a little while.

A girl gets awfully tired of thinking deep thoughts sometimes.

Such was the case last night, when I found myself utterly at a loss. Call a friend? Nah. Laundry? Boring. Put together the new bookshelf from Ikea? Yawn.

I decided to take a walk around the old town area of my new little burg to get out the restlessness. It was a perfect night to window shop. A bit chilly, but nothing wrapping a poncho around me couldn’t cure. Several blocks and cute stores later, I was thrilled to see a movie theater just waiting to feed my media starved self. Actors and music and script, oh my! I picked a flick, got some corn and settled in.

I should mention at this point, that I had no idea I was going to see this particular movie. Seems I got the title Playing for Keeps completely mixed up with Pitch Perfect. (This kind of thing is happening  to me frequently these days, I’m not happy to report.) So imagine my chagrin in the opening scenes when Gerard Butler is playing soccer instead of a bunch of funny chicks singing. At first I thought I’d stepped into a sports movie, but hey. I paid my eleven fifty so I was staying. After all, I liked Moneyball, so anything could happen. I wrapped my poncho around me and stretched out. It quickly became apparent that it was a romantic comedy and I was safe.

Or was I?

Playing for Keeps has been done to death. This plot line is as tired as my grandmother, and she’s dead. You know the one I mean … divorced Dad hardly spends time with his son, but then a wacky happenstance causes him to coach his kid’s team and they turn out to win the last game and Dad and Mom get back together. Dad grows up because his son teaches him the importance of unconditional love and blah blah blah!

Along the way, I was surprised at how many stars showed up in supporting roles. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Uma Thurman (who does not miss the chance to show off her fab body in bra and panties) Dennis Quaid (surprise, he plays an unlikable guy!) and Jessica Biel. Musta been the huge paychecks that drew these actors in, cause it sure wasn’t the inane script that was completely uneven and unfunny.

Certain details were never explained (like why didn’t George get busted for taking nine hundred bucks from the team money to pay his rent?) and other scenes strove to be funny but were just plain throwaway. As in Barb (Judy Greer) pursuing Coach George relentlessly and then simply disappearing from the film almost altogether?

However.

I still have a pulse and blood running through my veins, so I have to acknowledge that there’s something to be said for the Man Candy that is Gerard Butler. Although I can’t see why he threw money at this project (if he would have asked me I would have just fed him another grape and told him to keep his cash in his pocket after I let him put his pants back on) I can appreciate why he chose the role. His character turns into a decent guy, so he gets to be the hero at the end. He also gets to lock lips with almost every woman in the film.

And Gerard is really not a bad actor. He has this whole thing to carry on his manly shoulders. He’s in almost every scene … looking very swarthy and adorable even with the high definition showing his eye crinkles. Yep. Without Gerard, this movie would have been much more of a droning bore. He, at least, made it palatable. It’s pretty sad,though, when that’s the only positive thing you can wring out of a film.