Review: Utah-made 'Romance in the Outfield: Double Play' strikes out in the rom-com department

Contrary to popular belief, most critics don’t rub their hands in glee at the prospect of writing a review for something bad — especially when the work, like the Utah-made “Romance in the Outfield: Double Play,” is as earnestly intended as it is clumsily made.

Directors Randy and Becky Sternberg mostly recycle the formula from their 2015 movie “Romance in the Outfield” (called “Pitching Love and Catching Faith” in some markets), of potential lovers dealing with some mixed signals. It’s the sort of rom-com that is overloaded with musical montages of the main couple hanging out, and of far too many characters walking in on two other characters at the worst possible moments and turning away without waiting for the usually innocent explanation.

Tyler (Derek Boone) is a one-time big-league baseball player who’s coaching a high-school softball team while waiting for word if his injured shoulder is healing enough for him to play again. His rival coach is Kenzie (Monica Moore-Smith), who treats Tyler with such contempt that it’s clear they had a thing once. Flashbacks confirm this, and tell us that it was the pursuit of his baseball career that thwarted the relationship then. 

What’s keeping them apart now? Still baseball, and his unexplained rule against kissing. (Huh?) But even more, the obstacle is his memory of his deceased girlfriend, Heather — who is seen only in flashbacks from the first movie, when she was played by Lauryn Kent (who now goes by Lala Kent, and is a reality star on Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules”).

While all of this infield romantic banter is going on, the Sternbergs and screenwriter J.J. Randolph divert us with a subplot of a runaway bride, Tiffany (Shae Robins), jumping into an Uber outside a church and wanting to get away from there fast. The driver, Chase (Dan Fowlks), who looks like he stepped off the cover of a romance novel, tries to become Tiffany’s confidante — which is how we learn that Tiffany is Tyler’s twin sister, and that she was about to elope with Tyler’s best buddy Brandon (Shawn Carter) before getting cold feet.

Rather than wallow in the rom-com cliches and hamfisted execution, let me concentrate on the positives. The filmmakers aren’t afraid to show the main characters as committed Christians, something most romantic movies dance around. And Moore-Smith — a homegrown talent who’s come up through such local productions as “Saturday’s Warrior” — is an engaging leading lady who could have bigger and better things in her future.

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‘Romance in the Outfield: Double Play’

★1/2

Opens Friday, February 14, in Megaplex Theatres locations. Not rated, but probably PG for mild suggestiveness and language. Running time: 97 minutes.