There’s no nice way of putting this: Playing for Keeps is awful.

Gerard Butler is George, a retired soccer player from the Scottish league who left the game at the age of thirty-six because of an injury.  Now living in Virginia, George’s life is nothing but problems.  Separated from his wife, Stacie (Jessica Biel) and his young son Lewis, George has aspirations to become a sports broadcaster, but the TV networks aren’t exactly knocking on his door.  Instead he’s asked to coach the local youth soccer team, the same team on which his son plays.  George is reluctant, but soon finds he’s actually good at it, and the young team of players soon find themselves doing something they haven’t done in a while; they start scoring goals.

So far, so good, but what at first looks like a family comedy in the Bad News Bears tradition suddenly turns into something else once several of the soccer moms start hitting on George faster than a series of foul plays.  George, we soon learn, is apparently irresistible to women.  With his healthy good looks, his European charm and that Scottish accent, women love George.

Playing for Keeps could have worked.  When you have a setup where the adults are acting less mature than the kids on the soccer team you’re immediately faced with comic potential, only the film ignores the parallel.  For the most part, it dismisses the soccer aspect and centers on the farcical elements of women chasing George and George feeling guilty that he often responds to them, particularly when what he desires most in life is to get back with his wife and start again.  In other words, he’s still a kid.

“How did you get to be so grown up?” George asks his wife.  “Somebody had to be,” she responds.

Gerard Butler’s character is amiable enough.  He continually means well, and I’ll give him credit – the odd moments when we see him kick a ball the actor actually looks as if he knows what he’s doing, but the film cheats.  It creates unlikely and, frankly, annoying situations with the women that often have no real outcomes, and in the end you’re left wondering exactly what kind of comedy is this supposed to be.  Is it a fish-out-of-water tale – the Scotsman chased by frustrated American women – or is it a farce, the kind where half-dressed cheating wives sneak out of bedrooms before being caught by their jealous husbands, or is it simply a comedy without the laughs?  I’m going for the latter.

 MPAA Rating:  PG-13    Length:  105 minutes   Overall Rating:  3 (out of 10)