Playing for Keeps Reviews
Top CriticEveryone involved deserves a script with more wit, originality and sense of purpose.
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?
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.
Smarmy. Dopey. Sloppy. Lazy. Creepy. Tone-deaf. Predictable. Embarrassing. Lousy.
Full Review
| Original Score: 0/5
I'll long be haunted by Dennis Quaid's manic performance as a palm-greasing dad who seems to be under the influence of bath salts ...
Playing for Keeps takes place in a tonally incoherent universe, constantly shifting between rom-com farce and mawkish family drama.
Full Review
| Original Score: C-
The only thing Playing for Keeps teaches us is: Guys, forget the bars and nightclubs. Soccer moms are where the action is.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
A film that's pretty much from the assembly line.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
An undistinguished, impact-free watch-checker that will soon be vaguely distracting transatlantic travelers who forgot to carry on their iPads.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
Butler beware: In acting as in soccer, if you keep taking dives, sooner or later you pay the penalty.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
It appears to be an empty-headed piffle of a film about a dashing former professional soccer star coaching his son's team and having affairs with an assortment of randy soccer moms. And that's precisely what it is.
Full Review
| Original Score: D
One of those movies that comes "straight from the heart" - the heart of the hack screenwriter's manual that pushes formulaic structure to cover up a lack of compelling characters, genuine emotion or actual humor.
Full Review
| Original Score: 0.5/4
For a trifle - one that probably looked like one on the printed page, too - "Playing for Keeps" somehow attracted a strong cast.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
At some point you hope [Butler] will find a movie that will give him the right material to make hearts truly beat faster.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
If Gerard Butler exudes rakish charm and Jessica Biel a charming flintiness, then why is Playing for Keeps so utterly charmless?
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
"Playing for Keeps" plods along pretty much as you'd expect. Its small pleasures come from the relaxed cast.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
This is modern movie stardom, and it's depressing: the romantic lead who could also be selling us body spray.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
Playing for Keeps doesn't play with a full deck.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
Is it a heartwarming romantic drama? Or a cynical sex and sports comedy? There is no wrong answer, dear ticket buyer.
Playing for Keeps is a throwaway movie if ever there was one.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
This rock-stupid combination of family schmaltz and horny-MILF male fantasy does this charismatic leading man (and everyone else involved) no favors.
"Playing for Keeps" is a perfectly pleasant romantic comedy completely lacking in novelty. This will leave many viewers unengaged, but may not be a disadvantage for its core audience.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Perhaps, if this movie fails, studios will finally accept that we all deserve better.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Not only is it not funny and not particularly romantic, it treats women like idiots.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
Half the actors realize they're in a bit of Hollywood fluff, but others deliver emotional performances worthy of a serious drama. As for Butler, well, it's hard to say exactly what he's doing.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
A sloppy, poorly focused comedy that wants to be about the relationship between a father and his 9-year old son but ends up being about nearly everything else.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
'Playing for Keeps' wants to run and kick feel-good moments through the goalposts, but it limps and wheezes from the opening faceoff until its final whistle, with a lot of effort expended to earn, and make, very few points.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
It is truly baffling that all the talented, acclaimed actors involved actually read this script and then agreed to devote their time to this movie, especially given its uncomfortably flagrant misogynistic streak.
Full Review
| Original Score: 0/4
Attractive actors can't redeem a sodden script.
A modestly affecting reconciliation drama wrapped in a so-so sports movie by way of a misogynistic romantic comedy, Playing for Keeps can't stop tripping all over itself.
