It may surprise
some moviegoers that Leatherheads, a fictional telling of
the early days of professional football, was directed by George
Clooney. Anyone who is familiar Clooney’s previous directorial
efforts, Goodnight and Good Luck and Confessions of a
Dangerous Mind, knows that the actor-turned-filmmaker has
used his projects to explore his fascination with the Media. The
former film focused on the honest journalism carried out by
Edward R. Murrow during the Red Scare of the 1950s and the
latter on the life of psychedelic “Gong Show”-host Chuck Barris.
Even those who have enough confidence in Clooney as a filmmaker
to allow him to take them in any direction he wishes would have
to concede that Leatherheads, on the exterior, represents
an auspicious turn for his junior feature.
But
Leatherheads really isn’t about football. In fact, most of
its themes revolve around its own wide-eyed newswoman, Lexie
Littleton (Renee Zellweger). Indeed, Littleton isn’t a
historical figure like Murrow or Barris, but her influence on
the Media is just as important to a story. In Leatherheads,
she finds herself motivated by an open assistant-editor’s
position at a major publication. In order to clinch said
position, she’ll have to dig up some dirt on America’s favorite
college football player, Cater Rutherford (John Krasinski).
Playing at Princeton, Carter has become widely beloved, not only
for his sportsmanship, but for his heroism in World War I. He
reportedly caused the surrender of a whole fleet of Enemy Forces
single-handedly.
But Carter may
not be the man that he seems. Lexie and her boss are informed by
one of Carter’s fellow soldiers that his heroism is a hoax. This
news comes at the optimal time, too, because Carter has just
struck a deal with sports-promoter C.C. Frazier (Jonathan Pryce)
and star-player of the Duluth Bulldogs Dodge Connelly (Clooney)
to go Pro with Duluth. Only professional football wasn’t the
glamorized pastime that it is today in 1925, the year the film
takes place; oftentimes, as is observed in the movie’s first
scene, only cows showed up to watch a given game. Guaranteeing
him a salary of $10,000 per game, Frazier hopes that Carter will
put the soon-to-be NFL on the map. A conniving Lexie may be the
only thing in the way of doing just this.
Despite its
affable, light tone, Leatherheads covers a lot of
territory. Not only is the movie about Lexie’s journalistic
ethics in her attempts to dismantle a supposed war hero, it also
becomes something of a romance when she finds herself in a love
triangle with Carter (halting the desire to break the story) and
Dodge. As if that all wasn’t enough to tide the viewer over,
Clooney secures ample screen-time for bits of screwball-comedy
and retrospectives on the quirkier elements of society at the
time (the widespread effect of Prohibition being the most
interesting among them). Still, Leatherheads maintains a
balanced tempo and explores every story-element it introduces to
a satisfying extent. If there’s one thing the picture can be
faulted for, it’s that it runs too long at 114-minutes, a
duration that the movie’s fluffy presence seems unprepared to
support.
Another problem
with Leatherheads is Clooney’s performance. The actor
doesn’t do a poor job of bringing Dodge to life; he just seems
too recognizable and distinct a celebrity for the role. Clooney,
a smooth superstar of Godzilla proportions, simply doesn’t seem
believable as a down-on-his-luck professional football player
whose last resort to keep his team alive is to take a chance on
a college-boy he can’t stand the sight of. His solid direction
makes up for this, but it’s a bit disappointing that he wasn’t
able to tone down his ego and keep off the screen. Krasinski, on
the other hand, is perfectly believable as Carter, capturing
every nuance of the character within his dopey exterior. It
should be noted, too, that Zellweger does a fantastic job as
Lexie, playing off of Clooney and Krasinski in a way that
breathes life into the picture’s otherwise-trivial
love-triangle.
Minor flaws
aside, Leatherheads is a film well worth seeing,
especially in the cinematically-dead month of March. I’m not yet
ready to dub Clooney a great director, but he certainly has had
a successful first three pictures, always tackling projects that
are entirely unique. Even if one doesn’t like the man’s
pictures, one must still admire his ability to push cliché ‘ol
Hollywood slightly out of its comfort-zone. Leatherheads
is a perfect example of one-of-a-kind (while still not at all
experimental) filmmaking.
-Danny Baldwin,
Bucket Reviews
Review Published
on: 4.3.2008
Screened on:
4.5.2008 at the AMC Burbank 16 in Burbank, CA.
Leatherheads is rated PG-13 and runs
113 minutes.
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