Football farce is nothing new

Poor Gerard Butler’s not had a great time at the box office of late.

Machine Gun Preacher and Chasing Mavericks weren’t complete stinkers, unlike The Bounty Hunter, but they didn’t set the world alight either.

And unfortunately this latest offering isn’t likely to either.

Billed as a ‘feel-good romp’, Butler retains his native accent to play former Scottish football star George Dryer.

George has fallen on hard times. In an attempt to get his life back in order, he rolls up in suburban Virginia to try to ‘reconnect’ with his estranged nine-year-old son Lewis (Lomax) and ex Stacie (Biel).

It’s not long before he’s enlisted to coach the local little league football team, but any attempt to finally ‘grow up’ is thwarted by the hive of attractive and sexually frustrated ‘soccer moms’ and a pushy, back-slapping soccer dad (Quaid) who pursue George for their own ends.

As Butler, who also acted as a producer on the film, has admitted, Playing For Keeps is “not reinventing the wheel”, but this comedy falls far short of its potential.

Perhaps the script is to blame. Bar a couple of strong one-liners, it lacks any originality or wit.

There are wonderfully touching moments between father and son, but just when you’re feeling moved, along totters a panting and scantily-clad Uma Thurman as trophy housewife Patti, and suddenly the tone shifts into a sexual farce.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is less cringe-some as femme fatale Denise, who helps George get an ESPN sports-caster gig, but only after she has had her wicked way with him.

But George’s true love, and the one he let slip away, is Stacie, who’s all set to marry her long-term boyfriend (Tupper).

Will George be able to persuade her that he’s really a reformed man?

Playing For Keeps warrants being a whole lot better, but it also doesn’t deserve the critical mauling it has received from some quarters.

Frothy, fun and farcical, think of it as an antidote to heavy Christmas indulgence.

Susan Griffin