Leatherheads (2008)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

George Clooney does double duty here as he stars and takes the director's seat in "Leatherheads" set in the roaring mid-twenties after the Great War. Clooney plays the role of Coach Dodge Donnelly who's a veteran in the sport of football. While a lot of the football teams are progressively becoming defunct, Donnelly the ever-so-optimistic person believes that football can flourish by making it professional and could potentially draw record-breaking crowds.Dodge feels that crowds will likely be drawn if they saw players who are masters of their craft and are actually getting paid while their performing.Renee Zellweger is the female lead here as a determined reporter, Lexie Littleton who's interviewing a young, handsome college football star who also happens to be a war hero named Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) Lexie only meet Donnelly only by a sheer twist of irony. Donnelly sees stars in this dashing young star and hopes that his fan following comes with him as well. Lexie wants to interview Rutherford to know more about him so while they await for this young upstart, they exchange some witty words with each other.Rutherford decides to give pro-football a try and surely enough, his tribe of followers gather around as the sport of football becomes increasing in popularity. As Rutherford becomes a touchdown machine, the sport itself became more rejuvenated than it has ever been. Sadly like in all movies, good things are not always what they seem to be. From Lexie's interviews and research, we're soon to discover that Rutherford is not the war hero that everyone claims he is. After using under-handed tactics to seek the truth about Rutherford, Lexie discovers that during the war, Rutherford gave up his fight to the Germans and his Company caught him in the act and all the facts have been sadly misconstrued. Lexi, being so honest is determined to leak the truth about Rutherford which would potentially ruin his good name, ruin his career and kill the sport of professional football for good.Sure you'd think that with a stellar cast that has Zellweger, Clooney and Krasinski in the leads it's going to be a great period piece film with lots of detailed history and plenty of nostalgia. Right? Wrong! The only real good qualities about "Leatherheads" is the soft soothing sounds of music from the 1920's. Songs you'll surely like to hum along to as you struggle to settle down to this movie. Another positive note is that the scenery is very sublime. That's about all that is good about "Leatherheads". Don't take my word for it, there was a patron more interesting in scarfing down his food and going back to the lobby for more, another man next to me snoozed the whole time and me I was just counting the hours until this film ended.The only two thespians that stood out from the boring bunch are Clooney and Zellweger who seem to engage in some pretty interesting dialogue and are the only ones who seem to have the only funny lines in this movie. Krasinski was very wooden and stoic and seem to lacking in any kind of team spirit. There's nothing engaging about him and is only on to look like an idiot.Some of the fight scenes are almost laughable (and not in a good way) and show no importance to the movie at all. Even Rutherford and Donnelly get into a confrontation over Lexie's faux affections and even if they threw fists at each other 100 times, they should have at least drawn some blood or bruised after one blow.For the jocks watching this to see some good ol' football, well forget it, the scenes were both awkward and disjointed. Even the last scene lacks in any significant climax to it. Rutherford gets traded to Chicago and his idle worshippers go along with him. And Donnelly and Rutherford's team duke in out in the mud like pigs fighting in a sty and the always tiresome story plods to who wins this epic game. It doesn't seem to tie in with the movie and the scenes are quite dull.All I can say is that "Leatherheads" is film that truly is mostly style and nothing substantial about it. I felt like I wasn't drawn to the characters and I felt like I dd not care what happens to them. With the only good performances by Clooney and Zellwager and the soothing musical score, I can not recommend this movie to anyone.

Before there wasn't any rules, there was a game with no rules. George Clooney brings the audience to a time where there were no Super Bowls, and America pro-football league was really struggling. The film is a romantic 'screwball' comedy set against 1925 starting the over camera mugging leading man Dodge Connolly (George Clooney), a charming, brash football hero, is determined to guide his team from cow fields to packed stadiums. George Clooney is best suite for comedy, and it works in this film. His charm, his timing, and the way, he can get the attention to the audience to follow him is amazing. He's seems the leader type in the role. He wants to make the sport better, but deep inside of him, he knows he can't do the breaking of the rules anymore if he wants the sport to survive. Right now it's not. Not only the team lose their sponsor due to fighting, but the entire league faces certain collapse, unless Dodge can figure out a way to save the sport. Dodge convinces a popular college football star to join his ragtag ranks. That popular college football star is All-American Carter Rutherford ( John Krasinski) a World War 1 who single-handedly forced multiple German Soldiers to surrender during the trench warfare. Carter has dashing good looks and unparalleled speed on the field that can help the struggling sport finally capture the country's attention. Carter also holds a secret about his past, that Dodge is trying to figure out. Not only Dodge, but Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger) a sport journalist looking for the big scoop. Lexie tries to get close to both Dodge and Carter to find out if there is truly a deep dark secret that Carter is holding and maybe the All-American American isn't as perfect as it seems. Renee is no more then repeating how she acts when playing Roxie Hart in Chicago. Something about her, doesn't speak or look sexy. It's not new, it's feels cartoony when hearing the fast-talking exchanging between her and Dodge. The script gives her hard-boiled witticisms to work with, some are good quotes that are quite funny and sophisticated, others need some more work. It works better then some of the dearth of dialogue in other period films from today. The love triangle between the three is great, because each of them are trying to get over the other. The ending game is still awesome, I like how they pull out a way for the team to use what they learn for the War to apply to the game of football. George definitely was influenced by th film "The Sport Parade" (1932) for this film, and the film also loosely mirrors the real life events that save the NFL in real life, with Jim Thorpe joining the Canton Bulldogs. The team in the film also sports the name 'Bulldogs'. Leatherheads try re-creates a genre long lost, and while both don't fully realize the style of the classics they emulate, it's refreshing to see someone still remembers. The overacting by George Clooney and Renee Zellweger's sun parched face does hurt the film. The music, by Randy Newman, gooses the action along in a desperate effort to create an atmosphere of madcap Jazz Age insouciance, but over all, it's mediocre, but it's worth watching. Yes, it might be dumbfounded, and have some scarecrows brains bad pacing areas in the film, but eventually it's just a matter of taste. I find this so-so good, so check it out if a football fan.

In 1925 America was experiencing a growth burst. Two years later Lucky Lindy would fly the Atlantic, the following year would bring the Wall Street crash, followed by the Great Depression. Within a further two years America would suffer the Dust Bowl and crippling unemployment. Indeed it is noteworthy that professional football and the NFL were also in their infancy. This is the age when our movie takes place. The spirited era of College rivalries and football field shenanigans. men's fox skin coats, hidden booze flasks, the flapper and 'the speakeasy' were all in fashion. America is in flux and painful, but heroic memories of World War I are giving way to the exuberant emerging power of a professional contact sport. Dodge Connelly, (George Clooney) an aging college athlete is keenly aware of the changing attitude. Sensing the prevailing mood, he develops a theory that football fans will pay good money to see popular heroes on the gridiron. He assembles his dwindling fortune and seeks out a World War I veteran, Carter 'the bullet' Rutherford (John Krasinski) and convinces him to play for the struggling Deluth Bulldogs. Banking on his 'hero' status the team becomes a major attraction and nearly unstoppable on the field. Enter the Chicago Tribune, who sends 'Lexi Littleton' a opportunistic female reporter ( Renee Zellweger) to interview the war hero in hopes of discrediting him and thereby advancing to an editor's desk. Although the story is very loosely based on the career of field phenomena 'Red Grange', it's also a biopic of the fading antics of football. With the changing tide of the sport, the free-for-all nature of the game which has also become a economical franchise and thus subject to the inevitable establishment of rules. Clooney does a remarkable job of presenting the twenties era complete with black female singers and the jazz age. All in all, a sympathetic and nostalgic view of an emerging nation seeking a new pastime, despite the struggles it must first endure. ****

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.