Playing For Keeps **½

Gabriele Muccino directed this Romantic comedy. Watch Preview. Cast: Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Judy Greer, Dennis Quaid. Rated PG-13 for some sexual situations, language and a brief intense image. Running time is one hour and forty-six minutes.

A charming, down-on-his luck former soccer star (Butler) returns home to put his life back together and gets roped into coaching the boy’s soccer team his son plays on. But his attempts to finally become an "adult" are met with hilarious challenges from the attractive "soccer moms" (Thurman, Zeta-Jones, Greer) who pursue him at every turn while he's trying to rekindle a relationship with his former wife (Biel).

The national critics haven't been too kind to this film but should you decide to go I think you'll like it just fine. Oh, you can see where the plot's going right from the start and nothing unusual happens along the way to the predictable ending, but the trip is made very entertaining with an above average cast for a film of this genre. There's not a loser in the lot and it's nice to see some of them, who've been absent from the screen for far too long. This isn't going to win any awards and you'll probably forget about it shortly after leaving the theatre, but you will enjoy yourself while it's unspooling. This is a good couple's film.

There are  no additional scenes once the final credits begin. Screen size and sound quality are relatively unimportant. Theatres/Times.