Leatherheads

Baseball is America’s pastime, but its most popular and profitable sport is football. Super Bowl commercial spots now go for almost mythical amounts of money, and the league even has its own television network—on cable, but still. Though it is now a multi-billion dollar business, this wasn’t always the case. American professional football’s humble and lawless beginnings serve as a backdrop for Leatherheads, a story about love…or the loss of innocence…or something.

    Directed by and starring George Clooney, Leatherheads takes place in 1925, a sort of waiting room between the Great War and the Great Depression. Prohibition was in full swing, and pro football was going down the tubes. Clooney plays Dodge Connolly, a 40-something man playing a kid’s game. He’s the star player for the Duluth Bulldogs, a ragtag group of misfits playing football in a dying league. When the team folds, he decides to enlist the help of Princeton football star/war hero Carter Rutherford (The Office’s John Krasinski) to help resurrect the Bulldogs. Rutherford is young, handsome and insanely popular, but it turns out he might have a few skeletons in his closet. Enter a nosy reporter, Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger), and a zany love triangle ensues.



    Leatherheads isn’t terrible by any means, but it doesn’t seem to have much of an identity. Clooney’s film seems to be heavily influenced by the Coen Brothers’ more comedic period adventures such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Hudsucker Proxy, but doesn’t have the cleverness or depth of either of them. Zellweger’s Littleton is a dead ringer for Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character of Amy Archer in Hudsucker…—a talented, no-nonsense reporter who can crack wise with the best of the boys in the news room, but who unfortunately gets too close to the subject of her exposé. Unfortunately, Zellweger, as is often the case, is pretty flat. There are a few instances where she and Clooney click with sharp back-and-forth dialogue, but she never displays the acerbic wit that would make Littleton really pop. The film itself also has a sepia-tone wash very reminiscent of O Brother…, and even includes some of the same supporting actors—like Stephen Root and Wayne Duvall—in supporting roles.

    Clooney's character is in line with his public image. Connolly is a carefree man all the guys want to be and all the women want to be with. Still, he seems to be unsure whether to play Connolly as straight or wacky, and as a result, his performance careens through the film much as his character stumbles through life. Krasinski also flounders in a somewhat plastic role, never quite pompous or sympathetic enough to evoke a significant response. Root and Duvall are great, though, providing a few laughs as a drunk reporter and well-meaning football coach respectively. And, early on, a cow grazing on a pasture also displays remarkable comedic timing. Someone should give that wrangler an award.

    Leatherheads has its moments, but it never commits to anything. It’s not madcap enough to be outrageous comedy, nor sappy enough to be a period romance, nor is there enough of an emphasis placed on the game to make it a sports drama. It just sort of bounces around awkwardly like a football loose on the field. Unfortunately, no one picks up the ball and runs with it.

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