Leatherheads: Movie Review (2008)

Directed by George Clooney, written by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, 113 minutes, rated PG-13.

In the wake of “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” and now the new George Clooney movie “Leatherheads,” there's the sense that history might be repeating itself. Both films are revisionist screwball comedies that work hard to capture the look and feel of another time while also reflecting elements of our own time.

Given the current mood of the country and how it has been dampened by the state of the economy and the war abroad, Hollywood appears to be on the verge of returning to a period when movies offered such zippy, Depression-era entertainments as “Twentieth Century,” “It Happened One Night,” “Bringing Up Baby” and “His Girl Friday.”

In theory, this isn't a bad idea, but Hollywood still might want to rethink it. What “Pettigrew” and “Leatherheads” underscore is the challenge of taking yesterday's period comedies and updating them for today's audiences. In each case, sometimes the movie works (usually when the farce is muted), and other times, it just feels forced (usually when the farce is amplified).

From a script by Sports Illustrated reporters Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, “Leatherheads” is set in 1925, around the time when professional football was starting to take hold. This is Clooney's third film as a director, and what it suggests is that he's a good student--in this case, one who apparently took notes while shooting 2000's “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” with the Coen Brothers.

Like that movie, “Leatherheads” has a similar off-beat charm and it's shot with the same rich honey tones. The one notable flash of color is its female lead, the very blonde and red-lipsticked Renee Zellweger, whose Lexie Littleton, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, is charged to seek out the truth about Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (John Krasinski), Princeton's star football player who may or may not be the former war hero he claims to be.

It's while Lexie is researching Rutherford's past that she connects with Clooney's Jimmy “Dodge” Connelly, who is the captain of the Duluth Bulldogs, a scrappy football team comprised mostly of blue-collar men happy to be earning a modest living while playing the sport they love.

Intent on lifting their exposure to the collegiate level, where upwards of 40,000 fans gather for each game, Dodge meets with Rutherford and his sleazy agent, C.C. Frazier (Jonathan Pryce), in an effort to convince Rutherford to join their team. For a steep price, Rutherford agrees to does so--and ticket sales soar. Meanwhile, a romantic triangle develops between Lexie, Rutherford and Dodge that can only end in the two men coming to fisticuffs while Lexie must face the ramifications of getting her story.

The film's premise is familiar but promising, so much so that you wish Howard Hawks had been alive to navigate those scenes in which the movie lurches unsuccessfully into slapstick. With all the mugging taking place, Clooney himself nearly gets mugged--he's a director more suited for drama (“Michael Clayton,” “Good Night, and Good Luck”) than he is for comedy. That said, the film's cast is strong, the script is likable and Clooney does have chemistry with Zellweger, who once again shines in a period piece. Along with Krasinski and Pryce, she proves invaluable in helping Clooney turn “Leatherheads” into a reasonably good time at the movies.

Grade: B-