FEVER PITCH

There is always room in the world for another good date movie. The best ones appeal to both genders, sparking smart after-movie conversation and affection. Fever Pitch could have been one of those films. After all Nick Hornby’s novels have produced two terrific examples of the genre: High Fidelity and About A Boy. Unfortunately, this latest transatlantic adaptation of his work is strictly a minor league affair.

Ben (Jimmy Fallon) is an amiably goofy math teacher and Boston Red Sox super fan. A child of divorce, his uncle took him to Fenway Park as a wee lad to ease the pain and he’s been fanatically following the team ever since. His apartment is a shrine to the Sox, his summer life is obsessively built around home games and his surrogate family is a cast of cuddly smart-mouthed characters that sit with him in the dug out seats he’s inherited from his uncle.

Enter Lindsay (Drew Barrymore), a hard-nosed, cute-as-a-button businesswoman who becomes smitten with Ben during his charming off-season, not realizing she’ll be relegated to the bench come opening day. She tries to adjust but, this being a romantic comedy, awkward complications ensue and the two characters fall in and out of love at the wrong moments.

The idea certainly has great promise but screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (City Slickers, A League Of Their Own, Splash) water down Hornby’s cunning examination of sports fanaticism so much they drain it of any dramatic potential. Eschewing emotional risk in favor of formulaic smiley-faced romance, Fever Pitch delivers a few funny jokes, the always-appealing Barrymore and little else. One wonders what a writer with real passion for the game – say, Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Tin Cup) – might have made of the script.

Part of the problem is Fallon. The Saturday Night Live alum brings an overly dreamy, gee-aw-shucks demeanor to Ben, disarming him of much needed intensity. The role seems better suited to Adam Sandler whose man-child characters carry with them a sense of real threat.

The Farrelly Brothers, stepping away from their own material for a change; deliver another of their increasingly polite comedies (shockingly, they relegate themselves to just one vomit joke here). The two have never been particularly good directors but they have been able to infuse even their weakest films with a great deal of heart and humor, managing to entertain in spite of their most obvious flaws.

Here, however, the film begs for more insight and tension. There is something to be said about personal passions – be it sports or business – and the empty space they fill. Fever Pitch hints as those larger issues but never allows them to effectively resonate within the characters or the story.

Coming off an 86-year losing streak, the Boston Red Sox surprised the world with an unheard of end of season upset and eventual win at the World Series. It’s the kind of legendary reversal of fortune that feeds the fire in the most fanatical fan. Too bad the filmmakers, who were shooting Fever Pitch at the time, can think of no better way to capitalize on this once in lifetime event than to tack on a halfhearted epilogue. A true Red Sox would have delivered a homerun instead of a ground single.