Playing for Keeps (12A)

Time Out says

Tue Dec 18 2012

The Scottish actor Gerard Butler doesn’t have a great track record with US movies but at least this spares us his American accent: he plays a Scottish former footballer who’s hit hard times in suburbia. The purpose of his relocation to the States is to bond with a son he’s neglected – and potentially get back together with the lad’s mum (Jessica Biel). But soon he’s conscripted to train his boy’s after-school soccer team and along the way starts to service the sex-starved moms.

These saucy interludes sit very oddly with the father-son bonding – it’s hard to know what this is trying to be: sports drama, family comedy, romance, mid life-crisis movie or sex farce? The latter option allows for enjoyable moments, thanks to a seductive, manipulative Catherine Zeta-Jones and a neurotic Judy Greer (even if neither does the image of women any favours). Meanwhile, Uma Thurman seems to think she’s in a Carry On film, all doe-eyed panting and heaving bosoms with Dennis Quaid on auto-pilot as her greasy wheeler-dealer husband.This has a decent cast, and Butler is reasonably charismatic. But everyone involved deserves a script with more wit, originality and sense of purpose.

Author: Anna Smith