Message to forthcoming reviewers:

I know the reviews for this have been bad, which gives you a licence to be nasty without challenge, but can you try to pick out positives if possible?

I am seeing it tonight with an open mind.

It's a good ensemble cast, so it can't be THAT bad..

Obviously you didn't see Valentine's Day.

Lol. I didn't see it. Taylor Lautner put me off

I thought about seeing this on the strength of its cast, but...no.

Use this time to see Killing Them Softly, Libs.

If I end up going to to the movies this weekend (which is possibly doubtful), I'll see Hitchcock.

Speaking of the cast, does anyone else feel slightly bad for Catherine Zeta-Jones, Uma Thurman and Judy Greer being reduced to third/fourth/fifth fiddle horny women roles in this movie?

There have gotta be better parts for them than this.

At least Judy Greer has got to be used to this by now after The Descendants and Jeff Who Lives at Home.

But of all three above, I am really wondering what happened to Catherine Zeta-Jones' career? She had such a GREAT run between 1998 and 2002:

The Mask of Zorro - $94 million
Entrapment - $87.7 million
The Haunting - $91.4 million
High Fidelity - not a big hit, but very acclaimed and beloved gilm
Traffic - $124.1 million and Best Picture nominee
America's Sweethearts - $93.6 million
Chicago - $170.7 million, Best Picture winner and she won the Oscar for it

After that streak, she should have been HUGE.

Fast forward ten years, recent films:

Lay the Favorite - VOD release in the US
Rock of Ages - $38.5 million
Death Defying Acts - $5,665 (!)
The Rebound - DTV release in the US
No Reservations - $43.1 million
The Legend of Zorro - $46.5 million

And Playing for Keeps is unlikely to make more than $25 million.

???

To be fair to Zeta-Jones, No Reservations was sold on her name and pulled in respectable numbers. I think she also took time off to raise a family.

Her 2013 output seems better, as she has prominent roles in Broken City, Side Effects, and Red 2.

You do see the difference, though, between the first streak and everything that came after, including Intolerable Cruelty and The Terminal and the ones I have mentioned?

It actually made 43.1 Million. Might want to fix that .

Catherine Zeta-Jones has had a husband with cancer to deal with too. Plus, she's not really a "leading lady". I mean, she married a millionaire to get out of working, so it kind of makes sense that she likes taking roles where she is part of an ensemble.

This is far from the worst film of the year, but it is mediocre through and through. The basic concept has promise and could have resulted in a 21st-century answer to Shampoo: a once beloved international athlete, now retired and near destitute after a bad investment, coaches his 10-year-old son's team in suburban Virginia and captures the sexual imagination of the bored, rich mothers. There are a few nods toward the comic potential of the idea, including a macho team father (Dennis Quaid channeling Nicolas Cage) who gives the new, famous coach a Ferrari, but they are halfhearted and short-lived in a film more concerned with syrup than strychnine. Any potential sense of sexual adventure and humor is undercut or even obliterated by a safe PG-13 rating; the film in general is afraid of its own storyline, casting its hero as a reluctant penis rather than a proactive sexual being. And it shies away from the sex in full an hour in, instead becoming a predictable and sentimental divorced-mom-and-dad reconciliation fantasy (an abrupt gear shift reflected in the film's two titles: Playing the Field became the juvenile sounding Playing for Keeps during post-production). Gerard Butler is a strong, charming lead and does his best, which elevates the enterprise a tad. The various women are squandered, Thurman in particular. The core audience for this type of romantic comedy is not the most discerning, but I believe even they will be mystified by this confused, unambitious jaunt, which does neither its cast nor moviegoers a favor.

C

Good review. Do you write professionally? I always enjoy reading what you have to say.

Thanks. No, I don't. I used to try and write reviews for the main World of KJ page, but it has gone dormant over the last few months.

I agree. I think he should be. He could be getting award screeners in the mail .

Wording of the year.