I saw Playing for Keeps the weekend before last with Katie and Sarah. I had seen an ad for it and was originally sold because it is roughly two hours of listening to Gerard Butler’s Scottish accent.
Unfortunately, my friends, that is pretty much all the movie has going for it. It throws cliché after cliché at you and expects you to buy it as realistic.
For example: Butler is a washed up former soccer champion who can barely pay his bills (okay that IS realistic, but still).
He retreats to some no name town in Virginia to be near his son and ex, Jessica Biel, who of COURSE is now engaged to someone else.
Butler winds up coaching his son’s soccer team and that’s when you start cringing. He has soccer mom’s flinging themselves at him left and right – neglected, bored, and horny, they feel he is a perfect escape from their otherwise boring lives.
I mean, are you kidding me with this? There is not one ounce of authenticity in this movie, from the dysfunctional relationship he was with his son to falling back in love with Jessica Biel and having everything tie up at the end into one neat, lovely, unrealistic and eye-roll inducing bow.
Save the money you would have spent in the theater and use it to buy whipped cream flavored vodka, hot chocolate and a movie from Red Box.
A Series of Very Bad Decisions 