The best thing that can be said about the new American “adaptation” of “Fever Pitch” that opens this week is that its directors – the usually reliable Farrelly brothers – knew that doing justice to Nick Hornby’s morosely funny memoir was beyond them. Instead, they borrowed, then watered down, his sports-obsessed persona, added elements of the romance thrown into the English film of the book, and moved the whole thing to Beantown.

Dour, dull, relentless Arsenal and its terrifying fans of 20 years ago, a horde out of Peckinpah, are transformed into Capra cornpone: the feisty, loveable Red Sox, and the feisty, loveable salts of the earth that worship them. To describe the script as lame would be to dis the disabled; let’s just say that stock footage of Boston’s not particularly inspiring skyline (included, doubtless, to make viewers forget the fact that much of the film was shot in Toronto) provides some of “Fever Pitch’s more entertaining moments.

As the Hornby character, Ben, Jimmy Fallon of “Saturday Night Live” does what he can to liven up a movie that is, whatever your view of cryonics, more dead than Ted Williams. He’s not helped by Drew Barrymore, still clinging to the sweetheart image she so laboriously built up after falling from disgrace. She portrays Lindsey, Ben’s supposedly sophisticated investment banker girlfriend, as Laurie Partridge with a spreadsheet.

In truth, however, Lindsey and Ben only play supporting roles to the real stars of this film, the Boston Red Sox and their regrettable (look, this is The New York Sun you’re reading) come-from-behind victory at the end of last season. If you want to savor those moments again, but this time in the context of an utterly unconvincing love story, see this movie.