Play the Game 2009

Robert Abele, Chicago Tribune: Veering between syrupy sweet and awkwardly dirty, Play the Game is a woefully scoreless exercise. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: There's a good comedy to be made about sex among seniors, but the low-budget indie film Play the Game is not that movie. Read more

Janice Page, Boston Globe: A film in which comedic maturity is measured in jokes about hemorrhoids, constipation, and erectile dysfunction. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Stay home and find yourself a Golden Girls marathon. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: While Fienberg's direction is no great shakes, the film showcases its veteran cast. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Play the Game takes an interminable hour to get going. Every scene, every line reading, plays slow. There's no snap to it. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Surely, there is a way of expressing the joy of sex without the potty-mouthed dialogue that desecrates the persona of a television and movie icon. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It's The Andy Griffith Show meets Seinfeld in the sack in Play the Game, which shows Andy is not too old to star in a sex comedy, I guess. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: Play the Game has all kinds of good intentions, but the comedy is too broad and the pacing is clumsy. Take away the dirty parts, and this is the type of thing you can get for free on the Hallmark Channel every day. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The sight of the once-great Griffith cruising at a singles bar in a backward baseball cap isn't the worst of it. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out: Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: The comedy's broad perfs, predictable story beats and pro but characterless packaging have a smallscreen feel. Read more

Aaron Hillis, Village Voice: This Lifetime-ready comedy is hardly provocative -- let alone perceptive, funny, or fresh. Read more

John Anderson, Washington Post: The good news is that the seemingly perennial TV fixture is still funny and sharp and folksy. The bad news is that he lost the bet, or whatever it was that got him into Marc Fienberg's smarmy, lackluster comedy. Read more