Starring Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel
Directed by Gabriele Muccino
The trajectory that Gabriele Muccino finds himself on offers a sobering cautionary tale for other directors: Go 0-for-2 on Will Smith Oscar-bait (Seven Pounds and The Pursuit of Happyness) and youll find yourself condemned to heading the latest attempt to resuscitate Gerard Butlers career.
This time around, Butler plays George, a former Scottish footballer whose career-ending injury and a series of poor business decisions have stranded him in a small Virginia community where he haphazardly seeks employment as a sportscaster and halfheartedly moons over his ex-wife (Jessica Biel). When George is handed the coaching reins for his young sons soccer team, he finds himself caught in the sights of three oversexed soccer moms played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, Uma Thurman and Judy Greer.
And so, after making little attempt to either amuse us or engage us emotionally for its opening half-hour, this alleged romantic comedy desperately attempts to generate laughs by having these three talented performers embarrass themselves in utterly demeaning roles. Ultimately, Biel is the only actress who gets out of this debacle with her dignity intact thanks to being charged with doing what she excels at: being pleasantly bland.
Granted, it would take more than her complete inability to emote or exhibit a single character trait to keep George from trying to reconcile. And every plodding step of the way, theres the distinct sense that hes making all of this effort or what the perpetually disinterested Butler passes off as effort because, well, its what a protagonist is obliged to do in dreck like this.
