Leatherheads.’ Screwball comedy about a reporter torn between two football players in 1925. With George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski. Director: George Clooney (1:44). PG-13: Language, violence. At area theaters.
In recent years, George Clooney has become the Ultimate Movie Star, a guy who can do virtually no wrong. Given the acclaim he has earned as a filmmaker alone - for “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” - it’s something of a surprise that he fumbles his latest attempt behind the camera.
Apparently, even icons have their limits. And with “Leatherheads,” Clooney may simply have stretched himself too thin, by serving as both director and his own leading man.
Here he plays aging jock Dodge Connolly, a 1920s football player watching his ragtag league buckle under flagging interest. Threatened further by rules designed to end the sport’s anarchic spirit, a desperate Dodge hires Carter (The Bullet) Rutherford (ever-likable John Krasinski). A war hero admired by men and adored by women, Carter perfectly represents the new face of professional football.
Meanwhile, ace reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger) is shadowing Carter wherever he goes, determined to find some dirt on America’s squeaky-clean star. Before long, both guys are making eyes at our gal, and when Carter signs with a better team, they become rivals on and off the field.
It’s easy to see what Clooney’s going for, but hard to understand the choices he makes. Just when we think he has settled into a witty homage to the great comedies of Hollywood’s golden age, he indulges in self-conscious slapstick. He - and his screenwriters, former Sports Illustrated journalists Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly - seem to have genuine affection for the good old days of unregulated chaos, but rarely create any rousing action.
As for romance, Zellweger bounces helplessly between two men who don’t suit her, while struggling mightily with a full lineup of rat-a-tat banter.
Frankly, she shouldn’t have to compete with the ghosts of Rosalind Russell and Carole Lombard, as Clooney forces her to do. It’s one thing to evoke the Champagne sophistication of the screwball era; it’s another to try to emulate it. Inevitably, the harder you work at capturing madcap fizz, the flatter things are going to feel.
Tags: , football movie, george clooney, George Clooney Fumbles With Leatherheads, leatherheads, Movies
