GEORGE Clooney joked on Oscar night that he was glad his obituary would now not begin by recalling he once played Batman.

Not so Michael Keaton, who has rarely caught a break in film since the ’80s – though he is very good as a depressed playwright in Michael Hoffman’s otherwise verbose and sluggish indie dramedy “Game 6.”

Keaton is Nicky, a famous playwright in New York City of 1986.

He has many reasons to be in a funk: For one, his wife (Catherine O’Hara) is leaving him because of his dalliance with a financial backer (Bebe Neuwirth).

Nicky’s latest, most autobiographical play is about to open with a leading man (Harris Yulin) slipping into dementia.

The playwright is convinced the work is going to be slaughtered by Steven (Robert Downey Jr.), a despised drama critic.

But most of all, Nicky is depressed with the tension of his beloved, doomed Boston Red Sox battling the Mets in game six of the World Series the same night as his play opens (the movie was shot in 2004, not long before the Sox finally ended the Curse of the Bambino).

The movie includes a recurring motif of immigrant taxi drivers – like them, the movie is constantly going around in circles.

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GAME 6

[**] (Two stars)

Soporific indie.

Running time: 87 minutes. Rated R (profanity, sexuality). At the Union Square, 13th Street and Broadway.