Dear Gerard Butler, please fire your agent. You had nothing but potential when you came to our universal attention in 300, and while both RockNRolla and How To Train Your Dragon were both a lot of fun, you've also fallen into the McConaughey trap of starring in one-too-many sub-par rom-coms. PS I Love You, The Ugly Truth, The Bounty Hunter; they've all been pretty crappy, but with Playing For Keeps, we have a reached a new low.
Butler plays George, a formerly famous soccer player who has moved to the States to be near his son, who lives with his ex-wife (Biel). When George takes over as the coach of his son's soccer team, he gets involved in the lives of some of the kid's parents, including a bevy of hot soccer moms (Zeta-Jones, Thurman, Judy Greer) who all want a go of George's soccer balls.
As far as the plot goes, that's your lot. George wants to be a better dad, and for about 90% of the movie he seems to enjoy sleeping around, but then all of a sudden he decides he wants his ex-wife back. Why they got divorced or how he went from multi-millionaire superstar to a bankrupt soccer coach is never explained, which makes it very difficult to actually care about Butler's character. On top of that, no two actors seem to realise they're in the same movie; Butler and Biel are okay, but Zeta-Jones and Thurman both seem to think they're in some kind of mad-cap sex comedy, and Dennis Quaid is a jittery, uncomfortable mess as he plays the closest thing this movie has to a villain.
In short, this is a romantic comedy drama that isn't romantic, funny or dramatic. Instead, it's misogynistic, humourless and painfully dull. Instead of paying attention to the plot, you'll spend the entire running time wondering how this many famous actors got involved in something this bad.
