Hollywood Product - Fever Pitch

Genre: Date movie for sports fans — or maybe sports movie for date fans.

The pitch, so to speak: Workaholic careerist Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) and boyish math teacher Ben (Jimmy Fallon) fall in love, but his superfan obsession with the Boston Red Sox throws their relationship a curve ball. Filmed last year against the backdrop of the long-suffering team's historic championship season.

Money shots: A foul ball beans Lindsey in a mean bit of slapstick. Ben pitches a surprisingly heated tantrum after missing a Red Sox victory over the hated Yankees. Lindsey's last-minute dash across the field during the game substitutes for the requisite climactic race to the airport in other romantic comedies. But the most charming shots are of local face-painting fans, hot dog vendors and other mainstays of Fenway Park.

Fashion statements: Lindsey fittingly remarks that Ben's apartment looks like a gift shop of Red Sox merchandise, including caps, jerseys, jackets, a "1918 World Series" T-shirt, even Red Sox-themed watches and jockstraps (though the best is the phone shaped like a catcher's mitt). At a Gatsby-themed costume party, Lindsey fetchingly dresses as flapper-era starlet Louise Brooks.

Gross-outs: Directing Fever Pitch, the Farrelly brothers of There's Something About Mary fame mostly swallow their gag reflex, but include an admittedly amusing bit with Lindsey noisily vomiting (off camera) on the couple's first date.

Funniest line: "Ted Williams would roll over in his cooler if he saw this!" — a reference to the late, cryogenically frozen Red Sox Hall of Famer.

Best line: "It's good for your soul to invest in something you can't control," one of the film's unexpectedly thoughtful notions about the tension between life-enriching pastimes vs. time-wasting compulsions.

Cameos: Of course, the 2004 Red Sox, especially Johnny Damon, Jason Veritek and Trot Nixon. Horror novelist Stephen King throws out the first pitch of the season.

Backstory: English novelist Nick Hornby wrote the original book about a dedicated fan of a hard-luck soccer team. The American filmmakers picked the Red Sox intending to be faithful to the novel's bittersweet tone, but were overtaken when the Red Sox unexpectedly won the 2004 World Series, requiring frantic script rewrites (and should make a great behind-the-scenes DVD feature).

The bottom line: The pointedly unfunny first half-hour makes Fallon and Barrymore look like big-screen comedy rookies. But once the film starts digging into sports rituals, fan psychology and incompatible passions, Fever Pitch turns into the rare Hollywood romantic comedy that's actually about something. Credit Hornby as MVP.

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