Playing for Keeps Reviews
Movies With Butter
All the characters and their motivations are banal at best and half drawn at worst, leading to the question: why didn't this end up on The Hallmark Channel starring TV's hot-tail of the moment?
Cinemalogue.com
... a half-hearted comedy about the perils of former professional athletes that unsuccessfully tries to force together elements of domestic melodrama and romantic farce.
Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)
An own-goal shambles of bland characterization, comic shtick, exes-still-in-love clichés and lazy implausibilities, Playing For Keeps plays down to the ugliest American stereotype of soccer-dull to the point of brain-death.
The Ooh Tray
Did Gerard really leave the UK and a guaranteed pundit spot on Match of the Day for an automatous son and callous wife? Playing for Keeps asks difficult questions like these but provides no satisfying answers.
Birmingham Mail
If this was a biscuit, it would be an own-label digestive, full of sugar and trans fats - but suited and booted in a glistening wrapper.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
This is London
The comedy has its moments but they are few, and a high-powered cast, which also includes Judy Greer and Dennis Quaid, give mostly low-powered performances.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Radio Times
Even the usually reliable Dennis Quaid flounders as a fellow parent in a film that is at least slickly put together but is ultimately a sheer waste of talent.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Daily Mail [UK]
In the long, ignoble tradition of naff romcoms starring Butler, this stands alongside The Ugly Truth and The Bounty Hunter as the worst of its kind.
Full Review
| Original Score: 0/5
ViewLondon
Sadly wastes its star-studded cast and has very little to offer in the way of laughs and touching moments.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
Birmingham Post
Even an actor as capable as Dennis Quaid is incapable of wading in to save it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Top CriticEveryone involved deserves a script with more wit, originality and sense of purpose.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
HeyUGuys
Hitting our screens on New Year's Day, let's cross our fingers and hope that Playing for Keeps isn't an indication as to how the rest of 2013 will be for cinema. Best to get it out of the way early, I suppose!
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
East Bay Express
Not quite as bad as it sounds, despite the corny game plan.
The List
Rigidly formulaic and shamelessly sentimental.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Dennis Quaid hammers away at a nothing role as Thurman's husband, an adulterous alpha dog; it's nearly identical to the one he played earlier this year in What to Expect When You're Expecting, but who's counting?
American Profile
A father-son heart-tugger wrapped around a mushy reconciliation rom-com sprinkled with tinsel of shiny Hollywood supporting stars acting like they're in another movie entirely.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
Boston Phoenix
Fox hasn't penned a script since 1993's So I Married an Axe Murderer, and he apparently hasn't left his home, either ...
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
jackiekcooper.com
Another "almost there" film for Gerard Butler. Amazing that he is still coasting on his "300" fame.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/10
These are actors due a break. Unfortunately, this comedy-drama about a kids' soccer coach boinking a bunch of desperate housewives doesn't appear to be it.
