Leatherheads (2008)

good back-story, and good acting

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Directed by and starring George Clooney, and modelled after classic Hollywood screwball comedies, "Leatherheads" stars Clooney as an American footballer who strikes up a relationship with a feisty reporter (Renee Zellweger). Along the way he battles rival football teams, hucksters and big business.Clooney, unlike most sex symbols, has always been willing to portray himself as a silly goofball. Here he exudes Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Bugs Bunny, part debonair, part comic strip. Zellweger, meanwhile, recalls Claudette Colbert and Rosalind Russell, both early screwball comediennes. The film co-stars John Krasinski and boasts fine set design and lavish period details. With contemporary adult comedies largely R rated, the pg12, squeaky-clean "Leatherheads" is a bit of an anomaly.7.9/10 - Worth one viewing.

"Leatherheads" is set in the 1920s in the mid-western states about the beginnings of pro-football. George Clooney, appropriately, plays a guy in his mid-40s who hasn't really grown up yet and is determined to just play football and legitimize it as a professional sport. His objective is in sight when he learns of 'the bullet' (John Krasinski) a college football phenom. But along with the arrival of an actually good football player, comes Renee Zellweger, an independent and confident young woman who writes for a Chicago newspaper.It's the type of film that would normally be a period drama, here they are telling it more as a comedy, and although it's not very funny, it's still a good movie. Of particular note is the cinematography and score, the colours and jazz backdrop the film perfectly and give you the feel of the era, while keeping the feeling of the film light."Leatherheads" works because it's a fun story, not laugh-out-loud funny, but still enjoyable and it never gets dark or serious.

In the 1920s, even though college football was regularly playing to sellout crowds, the professional side of the sport was as anathema to most Americans as Hulk Hogan being feted as guest-of-honor at the Queen's high tea.Poorly regulated and sparsely attended, these early pro games were true spit-and-bailing-wire affairs, the players little more than a ragtag collection of "miners and farmers and shell-shocked veterans of the Great War," the equipment well-worn or nonexistent, and as for venues - well, pretty much any turnip field that didn't have too much of a slant or too many holes in the ground would suffice in a pinch. It was about as far from the multimillion dollar contracts and corporate sponsorships of today's NFL as one could possibly imagine.It's nice to be reminded of football's humble beginnings every now and then, and "Leatherheads," at least in theory, is just the movie to do it.Based very loosely on fact, the screenplay tells the story of Jimmy "Dodge" Connelly (George Clooney, who also co-wrote and directed the film), a pro ball player who comes up with a scheme to save the league from extinction by recruiting the top player from Princeton, a charismatic war hero named Carter "the Bullet" Rutherford ("The Office"'s John Kransinski) to play for the Duluth Bulldogs. This brings the fans to the arenas in record numbers, and pro football seems well on its way to a bright and lucrative future. Enter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), an acerbic ace reporter for the Chicago Tribune whose editors have sent her on assignment to investigate whether Rutherford's status as a war hero is really all it's trumped up to be or whether it's just a carefully manufactured fiction designed to boost his popularity with the fans - an expose that, if printed, could well spell doom not only for the young man himself but for the sport whose new-won fame is intricately linked to the prestige he alone confers upon it.Done in the style of a 1930s screwball comedy, "Leatherheads" is filled with sharp-tongued characters who basically spoon and spar their way to a happy ending. But while the movie certainly looks sensational and boasts tremendous star power in the likes of Clooney, Zellweger and Kransinski, the triteness of the storyline and the cutesiness of the humor rob it of much of its sophistication and charm (an attempt at a Keystone Kops parody is a particularly dopey and ill-conceived stab at period detail relevance). Unfortunately, the farther the story drifts from the field and the history of football itself, the less compelling the movie becomes. Thus, "Leatherheads," with all its side forays into romantic schmaltz, corny newsroom melodrama and lowbrow slapstick, squanders its opportunity to be the first mainstream movie to truly explore the infancy of the game. A pity.On the other hand, the movie does contain some of the best art direction, costume design and cinematography of any movie in recent memory. And that alone might make it worth checking out.

I was surprised to see the very generous rating on IMDb. This honestly is the worst film i have watched in my entire life. It was so slow and lifeless that i actually started making up other stories in my head to help make the time pass faster.Im not a high maintenance film watcher - ill happily sit through the most basic Rom com to an espionage film with constant twists and turns, to ... well you get the picture. My tastes are well rounded and easy to please.Renee looked like she had just sucked on a lemon in every scene. Her accent was terrible and acting worse. Im a huge fan of Bridget Jones and its tongue in cheek humour and her good portrait of the character so had some expectations (not particularly high) of how this movie would be. It didn't even deliver on those moderate expectations.If you have nothing to do this afternoon i suggest you save your $10 and watch paint dry or something equally more exciting than sitting through this film