You know that one scene, used in many movies, where an ATM
or a slot machine has broken and begins to spit out hundreds of dollars or pour
out unwarranted tokens at a rapid rate? This is the image that was conjured in
my mind whilst enduring “Playing For Keeps”, the latest in a long line of
terrible romantic comedies starring Gerard Butler. But instead of a cash
machine or anything else that would belong in a fulfilling fantasy, I was
struck with the notion of Hollywood’s cliché machine, malfunctioning and
uncontrollably vomiting out conflicting bad-movie ideas.
It
shouldn’t be to anyone’s surprise that the state of the American
romantic-comedy has been in retrograde for quite some time—and I say this of a
supporter of the genre. However, this movie in particular seems to find new
lows by trying to jam square-shaped plot-devices into round shaped, narrative
voids.
George
(Gerard Butler) is a once professional, Scottish soccer hooligan who has since
run into a stream of bad luck. Now divorced from his wife (Jessica Biel), he is
forced to live jobless, struggling for rent in America, where he can share custody
of his son. When he decides to coach his kid’s junior soccer team for money, he
begins to attract the lascivious attentions of all of the cougar moms at practice
(Judy Greer, Catherine Zeta-Jones). He also decides to make friends with a
sleazy and rich team supporter (Denis Quaid) but has to make sure that the
camera men that follow his wife (Uma Thurman) don’t capture any suspicious
looking activity when she sporadically throws herself at him. Meanwhile, he
still has to find a way to get a better job as a sportscaster, win the approval
of his distant son, who is getting used to his mother’s new boyfriend, and
hopefully win back the affections of his wife, with whom he still has feelings
for… Let the dry-heaving begin.
Nothing
works in this movie and that is almost the most fascinating thing about it.
While many rom-coms are overly sappy and sometimes broad, this movie is just
downright perplexing. Every scene is setting a new tone and switching the
intentions of its characters and the plot. Is it a father-son bonding film
about divorce, is it a raunchy sex-comedy, is it an underdog story about a man
trying to prove his self-worth, or is it weepy drama about reconnecting with
your long-lost love? It’s none of the above because it can’t commit to any of
them. Literally, you could go to the bathroom halfway through and come back in
the middle of a completely different movie.
Gerard
Butler is handsome and charming enough, but in this he just comes off as creepy
and/or wishy-washy. Quaid seems to be channeling a manic Nicolas Cage with a
load of unchecked, overacting energy from mars. Also, the usually-talented
female cast is completely wasted, as this is yet another “chick-flick” that noticeably
hates women. Every female character in this movie is portrayed as flighty,
desperate, conniving, controlling, or just plain mean.
Ironically,
“Playing For Keeps” does anything but that. I would say that it has no truth of
its convictions but the truth is it doesn’t have any convictions. Each mechanical
contrivance seems to cancel out the next and what you are left with is a
grotesque Frankenstein of a film. This is one of the most confused and
mishandled movies made this year and I truly despised every moment of it.
Grade: F
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2012
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