Movie review Leatherheads
April 7th, 2008, 4:42 am Hobbies And Interests
Slapstick meets screwball in “Leatherheads,” an amiable valentine to an era of breakneck repartee, bathtub booze and anything-goes gridiron warfare.The setting is 1925 Duluth, Minn., home base of the Bulldogs, a rough-and-ready pro football team in an era when pay was low, glamour was nil and rulebooks were rarely consulted. Dodge Connolly (George Clooney), the team’s irrepressible quarterback and manager, boosts the game’s entertainment value with bizarre plays like the Rin Tin Tin: The left wide receiver howls like a scalded hound while you snap the ball right.Still, the crowds are thin, and the team is so cash-strapped they shower in their uniforms to save laundry fees. When Princeton football star Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (John Krasinski) plays his final college game, Dodge entices him to join the teetering Bulldogs for a percentage of the gate.Following Rutherford is Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), a feisty Chicago Tribune reporter ostensibly covering “The Bullet’s” career, but actually investigating his story of battlefield heroism. Soon the Ivy League golden boy and the aging roustabout are romantic rivals.Clooney radiates rakish charm, making himself the butt of jokes about his advancing age and including a comic stunt that echoes his recent motorcycle accident. And those endless comparisons to Cary Grant are deserved.Krasinski is solid as a straight arrow with troubling memories, although he never measures up as serious romantic competition. Jonathan Pryce adds suave menace as Carter’s unscrupulous agent, and Stephen Root makes off with most of his scenes as a tippling sports reporter.”Leatherheads,” Clooney’s third outing as a director. Clooney, who co-wrote the film, is unabashed in his affection for period Americana and old-school filmmaking, and recreates it with impressive technical polish. Still, he missed one crucial lesson from 1930s comedies: Keep it short. At an hour and 54 minutes, “Leatherheads” often lopes when it should race, with dead-weight scenes and extraneous subplots.Drawing from movies rather than life, “Leatherheads” often feels like a likeable exercise in retro style rather than a film with a compelling reason to exist on its own.
Tags: dodge, game, perce, sportsRelated posts
