'Fever Pitch' - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

'Fever Pitch': A base hit, but not out of the park

By BOB TOWNSEND
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Better known for gleeful gross-outs involving the likes of artificial limbs and hair gel, Peter and Bobby Farrelly have also often displayed some surprisingly romantic notions in their unapologetically naughty screwball comedies.

20th Century Fox

'Fever Pitch'

B-

The verdict: A Farrelly Brothers film with more love than laughter — and a whole lot of baseball.

Directors: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Jimmy Fallon
Run time: 98 minutes
Release date: April 8, 2005
Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, and some sensuality.
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On the web
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But the latest work by the bad-taste brothers puts the love stuff front and center. In fact, while it's frequently amusing and awfully sweet — except for a couple of perfectly inane, pop-music-driven montages; a long set piece centered on a dog and vomit; and one very weird shower scene — you might never guess that "Fever Pitch" was a picture wrought by the Farrellys. It certainly doesn't induce the sort of just-can't-help-it hoots that are the stock in trade of their earlier films, such as "Dumb & Dumber," "Kingpin" and "There's Something About Mary."

With Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore starring as sports-crossed lovers, "Fever Pitch" takes the romantic comedy formula and marries it to a baseball movie. Fallon plays Ben Wrightman, a sort of shlubby, sort of cute high school math teacher, who's an utterly and completely fanatical Boston Red Sox fan. Barrymore plays Lindsey Meeks, a goofy-glam version of a hard-driving career woman, who's about to turn 30 and suddenly realizes she forgot to have a life.

These opposites definitely attract, but the contrast is as considerable as the chemistry. Lindsey's world is a slick glass office filled with flat screen computers. Ben's world is a dilapidated classroom with numbers scrawled across a gunky blackboard. Her condo is the epitome of contemporary chic. His apartment is... Well, that's where the center of his weirdness and the crux of the second act conflict lies — on a bed with Red Sox sheets; in bathroom with a Red Sox shower curtain (and Yankee toilet paper); and in a closet full of Red Sox shirts, and hats and jackets.

At first, Lindsey sees Ben's obsession as evidence of a "lyrical soul" — especially in light of her own workaholic ways. But as she slowly changes to fit into his fan boy lifestyle, even bringing her laptop to the ball park, he stubbornly remains, as the omnipresent narrator puts it, "One of God's most pitiful creatures, a Red Sox fan." And in the face of a major crisis, he balks and causes the predictable breakup.

For their parts, shaggy Fallon and bubbly Barrymore are immensely likable. But Barrymore is clearly the pro here, propping up Fallon's sometimes befuddled moves in several scenes. Except for Lindsey's parents, played by James B. Sikking and Jo Beth Williams, the rest of cast consists mostly of caricatures of friends and fans, on hand to stand and deliver a blustering punch line from time to time. But for reality's sake, there are plenty of Red Sox players, including Johnny Damon, David Ortiz and Keith Foulke, along with doting scenes of Boston's Olde Town and Fenway Park.

Of course, "Fever Pitch" will undoubtedly make is bones at the box office by virtue of the fact that the Farrellys had the good luck to be filming last year when the Red Sox won the World Series — for the first time in 86 years. Needless to say, the ending of the film — originally titled "The Curse of the Bambino" after the bad luck that has blighted the Red Sox since they traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees — had to be changed to include more than one happy ending.