Gerard Butler plays an ex professional footballer trying to kick-start his life in America by becoming a sports presenter and be near his son.Butler plays George Fryer, who played for Celtic, Liverpool (he was there 'at that famous night in Istanbul') and also played for his national team, Scotland before playing soccer in the USA.A bit like George Best he has lived the good life and is now short of cash and in order to get closer with his son, he coaches the kids soccer team which means all the soccer moms wants to bed him. Butler still carries a torch for his ex wife who is planning to marry someone else.Butler enjoys playing a footballer who is a babe magnet much to puzzlement of his landlord who is always chasing him for the rent. Butler displays an easy charm but there is very little original in a story where the women are shown to be shallow and vapid.

A heartwarming family feel-good film, as it would be described on the trailers. This movie is boasting with an all-star cast, what with the obvious heartthrob Gerard Butler, and the queue of beautiful actresses; Catherine Zeta-Jones, Uma Thurman and Jessica Biel, with this all star cast I was expecting a somewhat comedic romance movie which would leave me weak at the knees and all teary-eyed and what not (given that the director, is responsible for the likes of The Pursuit of happiness). Clearly as I'm saying this, it was not the case, I was quite disappointed, given Gerard's usual talent in this type of genre and the amount of star talent in this movie. I felt at times this movie was trying to hard to fit into that uniform "rom-com" category, I mean don't get me wrong there were some funny points, but at most times I found that they were trying to hard to add some comedy into the movie. Butler plays a retired soccer player George Fryer, who is trying to kick start his life again, in the form of his career, love life and his son. It follows his return to the town where his son resides and him taking over the position of coach for his son's team. This takeover is made difficult by the parents, more specifically the females, of the children who he is coaching who take a particular like to him and his good looks. The film plot itself is very typical romance and hence very predictable; ex getting remarried, broken relationship with son and a non existent career. I for obvious reasons cannot say why I predicted because then it would give away the ending, but as soon as he moves back to Virginia for his son, it is very clear. Now the movie wasn't all bad, the story with his son is somewhat touching, but I feel I don't have a lot to say as like I said was disappointed at this movie.Some of you out there are likely to enjoy this more than I did, especially if your a female who wishes to be Gerard Butler's next wife. I would not recommend paying cinema prices to see this movie, but to wait until it hits rental or sky movies.

The fact that Playing For Keeps received such poor reviews doesn't surprise me because movie critics are some of the most closed minded individuals on the planet and this movie doesn't fit into one of their predetermined little genres. It is too raunchy to be a family movie, doesn't focus on relationships or drama enough to be a romantic-comedy, doesn't involved enough soccer to be a sports movie, and doesn't have the proper type of humor to be dude movie. What it is, however, is just an all-around decent film. There's nothing great about it but it does everything pretty good. The cast is great, though they are a bit underwhelming and underutilized in the film, and they provide solid performances, albeit a bit cliché. The plot is decent enough to keep you engaged. Is it predictable? Of course it is but so are 99% of movies made nowadays so that's nothing new. All in all, I think most open-minded viewers will enjoy this as a pretty good all-around movie, nothing more, nothing less.

Enjoyable movie to watch, but painful to see the web of lies related to being in a relationship. Cheating, the lies, lust, sex. Wow. If this is what it's like in real life, I rather be single.Too bad the children are always caught in the middle of these things.Overall, it was an.......entertaining movie to say the least. Direction was excellent, cinematography was excellent, acting was excellent.You know the synopsis already. A former superstar in the world of soccer is having financial difficulties, divorced, and seem like nothing is going for him. All that turns around when he starts coaching peewee soccer....