Leatherheads

George Clooney was clearly trying for screwball nostalgia with this sports comedy, but what he actually put together sits on the screen like a lump of lead.

Clooney stars as a professional football player back in the days (1920s) when no one cared much for professional football. As an attempt to bring some attention and fans to the sport, he cajoles a popular war hero and college football star (college football happens to be the rage) to go pro. Eventually, the two become rivals when the college star transfers to an opposing team. Meanwhile, the editor of a newspaper learns that the war hero's story is a fraud, and sends out a feisty reporter (Renee Zellweger) to expose him.

All of these ingredients are meant to mix into an antic romp, and Clooney, Zellweger and John Krasinski (who plays the war hero) try their damnedest to be madcap, mugging shamelessly at the camera at every opportunity. But the movie grinds along painfully, and you can practically see the sweat beading on the actors' brows as they work overtime to make the material funny. Krasinski is miscast as an all-American war hero; there's something a little too bookish and dopey about him to make him believable. And Clooney and Zellweger have absolutely no romantic chemistry -- they're given roles that, say, Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck would have played if this were a screwball comedy from the 1930s, but they work up no heat and deliver almost no laughs.

No expense was spared on the period look of the film, and Randy Newman for once provides a tolerable and playful score, but everything else about the film is a dud.

Grade: C

Like a lot of people, I never bothered with this film when it came out in the cinemas because of the negative reviews that it got. Likewsie when it came to DVD it sat at the bottom end of my rental list waiting for me to want to watch it. Eventually I did and initially I thought that the reviews had been unfairly harsh because the film seemed like it was going to be a light and sparky sports period piece that captures the screwball comedies of years gone by. This is how it starts but unfortunately it is not how it continues. It is not like, at some point the film suddenly gets "bad" (it doesn't) but more that it doesn't quite have the sparkle or life that the trimmings all suggest that it will.

In terms of capturing the period, it does a great job – or at least it does a great job of continuing the nostalgic idea of the period. It does this with a cool jazz soundtrack, good costumes and the suggestion of the snappy dialogue that the screwball movies are known for. I say suggestion because of the places where the film doesn't have the zing that it needed is in the script. It does have its moments though and it is quite fun at times but mostly it feels like it is just falling short of where it should be. It has a couple of things that don't help this either. Firstly it is too long, maybe not for the plot (it doesn't "drag" per se) but certainly for the light tone. Secondly, the romance aspect of the plot doesn't really work, which is partly down to the casting of Zellweger.

Where Clooney fits the bill as a "too-cute by half" square-jawed matinée star, Zellweger cannot convincingly deliver her lines in a way that works. I think of Jennifer Jason Leigh in Hudsucker Proxy – she did an impression of an actress in a screwball comedy that was pretty good and looking at that shows up how ill-suited Zellweger is. I know people dislike her on principle but I am not one of them, I just thought she was pretty poor here. Krasinski is good in his role even if, to be frank, he didn't do anything that suggested he has more than the range of characterisation that he has already shown on The Office – and that should be of concern to his "people" since he will soon need to breakout of that show as it cannot run forever. The supporting cast has plenty of interesting and recognisable faces who do solid work.

Leatherheads is not a terrible comedy as some have suggested and it should not be criticised for being inconsequential or light. Sadly though it is not frothy, sparky or fun enough to be the film that it was clearly intended to be. OK there are specific issues with aspects of the plot and some (well, one) bit of casting but generally this bigger picture problem is what limits it to be an "OK" film but no better than that.

Just yesterday, my family and I were itching to go to the movie theatre. After my grandfather recommended it to us for being "hilarious slapstick humour", and after seeing some funny previews, we decided to see Leatherheads. Leatherheads, George Clooney's latest movie, dives into the Roaring 20s, early professional football, the Chicago Tribune, and fake war heroes, all in about an hour and 44 minutes. As unappealing and generic as that might sound compared to the average comedy feature, it was actually a quite fun movie, which is to be expected coming from Clooney.

The movie follows the story of the Duluth Bulldogs, a professional American football team, and its most well-known player, Dodge Connelly. Luck is not always on the Bulldogs' side, as can be interpreted from the outcome of the first game you watch them play, but trickery and cheating is. Dodge becomes infamous for cheating almost every game and leading his team to victory because of it. It was okay then, though. There were no rules to American football early on, and cheating was what made the game interesting. That's one of the main themes of the movie.

After the introduction comes Lexie Littleton (played by Renée Zellweger), a quick-witted reporter for the Chicago Tribune who doesn't like her co-workers too much. After calling them "dimwitted" or something similar for the fortieth time, Lexie is assigned by her boss to a story on Carter "The Bullet" Rutherford (played by John Krasinski), a war hero with a more than embellished story. When she is promised the assistant editor's desk if she brings back some dirt on The Bullet and exposes his fake war story, Lexie sets out on quite the adventure, meeting Dodge and the rest of the Bulldogs along the way.

I know that all of this probably sounds generic to the average moviegoer, but it's actually a quite fresh and fun movie. With any other actor and actress at the forefront at the movie, it may have come off as generic and boring, but Clooney and Zellweger have enough chemistry and enough quirks to make the movie fun. There are also some absolutely classic lines and scenes. It's just a fun movie. Don't expect too much depth, because there really isn't any. This movie is more than enough to quench the thirst of any moviegoer who asks for nothing more than an hour and a half of simple humour and slapstick antics.

The historical accuracy is there. Some scenes are featured in a speakeasy, with a female African-American jazz singer performing. Basically everything you see is typical of the time period. Actually, anyone watching the movie might get a little shock when they hear that coffee is only 10 cents a cup at a diner Dodge stops at early on in the movie. However, on the other hand, some major plot areas are not at all historically accurate, especially relating to the football commissioner, since there was no football commissioner for the NFL until 1941. However, this is perhaps looking too deeply into a fun, casual movie.

The main criticism I have of this movie is that some of the scenes just go on too long, especially the punching scene which was featured in the previews. After they punch each other in the face for the tenth time and finish it off with a bad joke from The Bullet, you already are hoping that one of them will bash the other's skull in by accident or something just so that the scene can end. To offset that, however, there were some very quick and humorous scenes, like the scene in which Dodge first meets Lexie in the hotel and tries to hide his face by reading an issue of a women's magazine.

Overall, Leatherheads is worth it for the entertainment value. The story isn't fantastic, but the acting is enough to make up for it, even if you only pay attention to Dodge's witty exchanges with Lexie. If you don't go in expecting too much, you will leave satisfied, refreshed, and entertained, and that's really all the movie aimed for.

I've read so many negative, dismissive reviews of this movie and I have to say, LIGHTEN UP for heaven's sake! It's not meant to stand with Ghandi or Gone With the Wind. It's just a fun, silly movie with a thin plot and lots of laughs and sight gags. Go to see it because you just want to sit back with your popcorn and laugh. (And daydream about George Clooney.) Clooney gave us "Good Night and Good Luck", so it's not like we should feel he "owes" us a "serious" movie. It's a fluffy little piece of nostalgia, a movie you won't be afraid to go see with your tween-age kids or Mom and Pop. Gramps will love it too, with all the vivid images of the "good old days" and a great ragtime score.

Clooney and Zellweger are campy in their roles (isn't that what they were shooting for?) and Stephen Root is a quiet riot as the hard drinking team owner.

(Synopsis) Jimmy "Dodge" Connelly (George Clooney) is the team captain of the Bulldogs in the struggling pro football league in 1925. The entire pro football league is in danger of collapsing, one team at a time, and his team is next. Dodge gets an idea of saving the team by recruiting a college football star who fills the college stadium with over 45,000 cheering fans. With the lure of big money, Dodge is able to convince Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) to drop out of college and join the team. Carter is not only a star football player who can outrun his completion, but he is also a national war hero of WWI who single-handedly captured a platoon of German soldiers. Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger) is a newspaper journalist assigned to get Carter's real inside story about the capture of the German soldiers. To get the story, Lexie must travel with the team, and in time, both Carter and Dodge fall for her. Only one will win her love as the fourth quarter comes to an end.

(My Comment) George Clooney not only starred in this slapstick comedy, he also directed it. The movie may not win any awards, but it is enjoyable to watch. Since the movie took place in 1925, the writers took us back to that time, and slapstick was the rule. If you let yourself go and get into the movie, you will actually get the feel of that era. George is very talented, but I don't think he has a flair for comedy. Renee Zellweger and George share a chemistry together that works well for this movie. You may think this is a chick flick, but you would be somewhat wrong. The love angle doesn't really get going until the end. You will love the way they play pro football with very few rules, especially, the last game that is played in the mud. This is a cute movie, and I know they had a lot of fun making it, because it shows. (Universal Pictures, Run Time 1:54, Rated PG-13)(7/10)