LOOSELY adapted from Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, the autobiographical novel recounting the author's lifelong obsession with Arsenal, The Perfect Catch is a sappy romantic comedy set in the baseball-worshipping city of Boston.
With almost every swing of the bat, directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly (There's Something About Mary) and screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel strike out.
Evidently, some love stories don't travel well across the Atlantic.
Since he was a boy, high school teacher Ben Wrightman (Jimmy Fallon) has lived and breathed the Boston Red Sox.
His bedroom is a shrine to the team even down to his bed linen and underwear, and every summer, he dutifully attends the training sessions and games, shouting support from the stands to incite his boys to championship glory.
Ben certainly isn't alone in his adoration for the Red Sox: his friends also worship at the altars of great players like Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Damon. The team's ground, Fenway Park, is a sporting Mecca.
During a school field trip, Ben meets ambitious, beautiful and spirited business consultant Lindsey Meeks (Drew Barrymore).
The spark is instant and the thirty-something singletons begin dating, to the horror of her heavily aerobicised gal pals.
At first, the relationship goes really well: it's winter and Ben's fanaticism doesn't get in the way of the cuddles and dinners together.
But once the baseball season comes around, Lindsey realises she is in a relationship with not one but 27 men: Ben and the entire Red Sox squad.
Is Lindsey willing to become a stranger to her man for half of the year or is she looking for someone who will always put her first?
The Perfect Catch has one solitary star player: Barrymore.
She exudes a natural warmth and bubbliness, which immediately endears us to Lindsey, even when the film gives us no reason to.
Strike 1! Fallon is an exceedingly bland leading man. If his sports-freak registers a single genuine emotion during the 103 minutes, he keeps it incredibly well hidden.
Strike 2! Laughs are in desperately short supply. Barrymore warrants a half-hearted giggle or two for her character's pratfalls.
Strike 3! We don't care a jot if Ben and Lindsey discover some common ground (or should that be turf?)
Indeed, when Lindsey coos dreamily to her man, "If you love me enough to sell your tickets, I love you enough not to let you," our first instinct is to take a swing and knock some sense back into her.
Instead, we're the ones who feel end up feeling battered and bruised by all the clumsy, unconvincing declarations of everlasting love.
See it at UCI, Odeon
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