Leatherheads

Leatherheads-2008

When George Clooney's Jimmy 'Dodge' Connelly character meets the alliterate named Lexie Littleton, played by Renee Zellweger in Clooney's newest directorial attempt Leatherheads, he says that he knows her as "the kind of cocktail that comes on like sugar, but gives you a kick in the head." The same could be said about Leatherheads and Clooney's previous efforts, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night, Good Luck; they start off interesting enough, with great characters and engrossing story lines, yet they fade and seem to almost get bored with plot and their characters.

Leatherheads has Connelly leading a ragtag group of football players in Duluth, Minnesota in 1925, as the idea of popular football is coming into fruition. However to keep his team together and to gain funding for the games to continue, he hired Carter Rutherford, a college football star and World War I hero who made a group of German soldiers surrender, played by John Krasinski of TV's The Office. But when Rutherford joins the team, he brings along Littleton with him, who as a reporter, is trying to uncover the truth about what really happened in the war and find out if Rutherford is actually as great as everyone makes him out to be. As the team grows in popularity, as do the feelings grow in the love triangle of Connelly, Littleton and Rutherford. Together, they try to work out their relationship problems while helping bring football into the mainstream.

The film starts off quick and fast, like a screwball comedy from the 1930's. At first, Clooney and Zellweger throw their witty banter back and forth very similar to that of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night. Be that as it may, the film quickly departs from these interesting quips and its unruly football games to become uneven as the movie goes on. Clooney, who has showed his comedic chops in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Ocean's trilogy, does not bring any laughs and Zellweger starts off as a strong female character, but ends up falling into a mess of female stereotypes by the end. Krasinski holds his own against Clooney and even surpasses him in laughs. In sports films, usually the team is filled with amusing players that are memorable, but Clooney's team is filled with forgettable meatheads. Unfortunately, the film has great opportunities for enjoyable characters, but the problem is in Leatherheads, the characters have no character.

Clooney's directing does show that he has a fondness for times long past and Leatherheads looks and feels like a Coen brothers sports film that just does not work. The idea of mixing a 30's screwball comedy with a sports film is an amusing way of appealing to a larger audience, yet unfortunately about half an hour through, it loses steam. The film shows promise scattered throughout, yet is not able to keep it up for the entire two hours. Throughout the film, Cloonley and the team talk about how football should be fun and enjoyable; something that sadly, Leatherheads is drastically lacking.

Rating: C-