Fever Pitch

A lifelong Red Sox fan falls for a workaholic girl who doesn’t know much about his disturbing obsession and falls for him in return. Months pass and the couple seem to be getting along just dandy, until baseball’s spring training starts up, as does the Red Sox fan’s libido for his sports franchise. What follows is a generic comedy based on the generics of generic comedies starring a former SNL-er and a former Charlie chick.

Where’s Adam Sandler when you need him!?! Yes, that’s a cheap shot at poor ol’ Jimmy Fallon, who so far in his early career in the land of movies, seems to be stumbling out of the batter’s box, with a thud at the box-office with TAXI, co-starring Queen Latifah, and now this film, co-starring the staple of romances intertwined with comedy, Drew Barrymore, in what can only be described as a very weak, predictable and blasé romantic comedy (minus the romance and comedy). Here’s a film directed by the dynamic duo known as the Farrelly Brothers, a couple of goofy, and generally quite risqué, New Englanders who scored funny and big with their early hits like THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and KINGPIN (I even liked STUCK ON YOU myself), but don’t seem to have tried anything original, funny or inspiring in this go-around, which rolls along like a lazy Sunday afternoon, with little to say, little to excite and absolutely nothing to retain once all is said and done. Talk about a “blah” movie! And as if all that wasn’t bad enough, the film is entirely predictable from start to finish, particularly since its basis in back-story is the 2004 miracle Red Sox season, which unless you’ve been living on the planet Neptune, everyone and their Uncle George already knows all about. Needless to say, not even the greatest drama in this film (of which there is none), touches upon the real-life spectacle that was the amazing series between the Sox and the Yanks last year. Rent that shite instead!

In the meantime, does anybody in the audience really believe that Fallon and Barrymore’s characters won’t end up together? Now while we all already know the answer to that question, it generally isn’t so much of a factor in most romantic comedies, as long as the jokes keep coming, the actors are charismatic and the plot keeps on truckin’, but everything here blows, as jokes are uninspired at best, Fallon is a jumble of nerve-wracking ticks (not to mention that he’s not a very good actor to begin with) while Barrymore is sub-par at best, and the plot, well…it just sits there from scene to scene, barely tossing any obstacles in the way of the two leads, and basically just buying time, as the baseball season winds down much like the audience’s tolerance for such mediocrity hopefully will. As for the chemistry between the two lead actors or the added “oomph” from any major secondary players? Two more strikes on those counts with the chemistry between the two stars reminding me of my grades in that subject matter back in high school (i.e. poor) and other than one hottie girlfriend of Barrymore’s, not a single side player making any sort of impression (good or bad) during the entire picture. I actually might have given this film an even lower score, but it doesn’t as much “suck outright”, as it’s just “there” and not good. But truly…I saw this movie about two hours ago and I can barely remember a single thing from it—save for one semi-humorous scene featuring Fallon watching a Bill Buckner videotape at home. That’s it, man…one joke in 100 minutes of so-called comedy.

PS: A big FU to everyone involved in this production for tainting the actual Red Sox miracle World Series victory by tossing Fallon and Gertie onto the field as the real players celebrated their well-earned historical win, just so that they can get a 2-second shot of them standing around the players. A horrible, horrible thing to do and one that any TRUE SPORTS FAN would know not to have done.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian