Fever Pitch

Review by Jason Gaston

I've got to admit, as much as I generally despise sports movies, I was pretty surprised that I enjoyed Fever Pitch. It could be because it's more of a movie about commitment and obsession rather than about baseball itself. That and this movie is cute as a button.

Forget Taxi... I wish I could. Fever Pitch marks Jimmy Fallon's first real movie... a movie that is funny and charming and everything you would want a lighthearted romantic comedy to be. Fallon is at the top of his game in this flick and is the likeable character that he could be all the time. Coupled with the always loveable Drew Barrymore, this is a great onscreen couple.

Fever Pitch is all about the romance between a no nonsense businesswoman and a small-time math teacher who happened to be obsessed with all things that have to do with the Red Sox. The movie is basically the story of how these two vastly different people fall in love, out of love, and then back into it all over again.

Shockingly, this Farrelly Brothers movie (You remember them, right? The fart and poopy joke obsessed duo who brought us There's Something About Mary and a bunch of really terrible follow ups?) doesn't contain a single fart joke. As a matter of fact, this is probably one of the Farrelly's better movies and a dramatic departure from their other works. I see this movie as a hopeful thing to come for the due who seemed, for the longest time, to be more obsessed with offending than entertaining.

Rather than seeing this as a romantic comedy about baseball, I'd like to think of Fever Pitch as a movie about the everyday compromises that couples have to make. I guess now, that as a married man, I can understand and appreciate those kind of compromises more than I could a few years back.

If ever there was an innocent feel-good movie, this is it and if you have any doubts that I did enjoy it, keep in mind that this is both a romantic comedy and a sports movie... two genres I despise with every fiber of my being.