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.
Review of Leatherheads
