OK, so the plot is formulaic. There is nothing new here, really. Or is there? I have seen this movie a few times, and always liked it. I think it's the acting and dialog.

The acting is a cut above what you would expect from the movie. The female lead is a prima donna. I felt like her complex human emotions at times were fairly believable. Sometimes she's bitchy. Sometimes confused. Sometimes you like her.

The male lead is perhaps not quite as good. But they did not fall into the pattern of simply making him another dumb jock. In a scene where they have both had too much to drink, I felt he reacted in a very realistic way. He delivers this great line in the movie to her after she insists he button the top button of his costume. Something to the effect of 'if buttoning that button made the difference between a long happy life and a painful death, he would not give her the satisfaction.' It was a perfectly acted scene, IMO.

The dialog was much better than expected in this type of movie. There's some pretty funny lines. And some generally great exchanged between the actors that are far less dull than you would expect. If I put this into the category of sports movies, I would say it really rates well partly due to dialog.

OK, so you can predict the plot. Obviously, it's a formulaic movie. But along the way, they throw in a few curves, and the characters react in many ways like normal humans would in the same situation, at least in my opinion.

If you like the love/hate romance movies, and triumphant sporting movies, I think this is up your alley.

p.s. chick flicks are not my favored genre, so the fact I liked this movie, says something I think (because it's a bit of a chick flick at times.)