Leatherheads: Review

When one looks back on the classic screwball comedies of Hollywood's past, all share the highest quality of screenplays. My Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby and the such, all feature whip smart writing first and any sort of visual prowess second. Unfortunately, Leatherheads, George Clooney's latest directorial effort, seems to have missed that lesson resulting in a beautifully shot comedy that lacks much in the life or laughs category. In fact, even the normally reliable Clooney, who usually seems to effortlessly effuse the type of natural charisma that few others have possessed, never quite hits his stride, leaving a performance that can't help but feel lackluster. As a result, Leatherheads is nothing less than a complete disappointment, a novel idea that falls on its face.

The story should be simple enough yet Leatherheads seems to complicate even the smallest moments. Instead of having the classic boy meets girl narrative at its core, Leatherhead attempts to blend commentary on the necessity of heroes with slapstick laughs and a dull romance into a script that never finds its voice. It tells of Dodge Connelly (Clooney) who plays football, in the post WWI 1920's, for the Duluth Bulldogs, a professional football team at a time where professional football was nothing more than a complete laughingstock to the American public. On the other side of the equation is Carter "The Bullet" Rutherford (John Krasinski), a war hero and Princeton football star. Throw into the mix bombshell newspaper reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), whose assignment is to reveal Rutherford's wartime exaggerations and you seem to have the makings of a throwback to the classic screwball comedies of the past. However, after a promising opening act, the film spirals quickly downward until the audience is left looking at their watches, hoping it all ends soon.

The heart of the blame lies in the film's dialogue, a stilted attempt at recapturing the sound and feel of the 1930's classics. Written by Rick Reilly and Duncan Brantley, two sportswriters, Leatherheads feels much less like a modern reinvention of the film's obvious influences than a botched attempt at a direct replication. The dialogue never comes close to the quick-witted repartee that folks like Sturges and Capra fed off of. Its much heavier than its influences and where classic screwball comedies floated along on a feather light dialogue of quick barbs, Leatherheads' conversations feel dull and tired, leaving the cliché storyline bare. As a result, the entire film moves slowly towards an unsatisfying finish. If one feels anything at the end of the Sturges film, the viewer knows that the romantic relationship at the film's core was earned through blood, sweat and tears, yet Leatherheads' finale never feels like anything other than a welcome relief from the film.

Clooney's direction here is capable and assured. He certainly has the cinematic eye of an industry veteran and much of the film's pleasure comes from the work of Clooney and Newton Thomas Sigel, the film's cinematographer. It really nails the look of the 20's and the visual feel of an old Hollywood film, right down to the opening Universal logo. There are some inspired visual gags, many of which are the best have the film to offer and those are well set up by Clooney's direction. While it may be the worst of his three directorial efforts, much of the film's faults are not due to his direction so Leatherheads continues to show that Clooney has continued to develop into a powerful director with an eye for brave, interesting projects.

As mentioned earlier, Clooney is surprisingly bland in his role. However, Zellweger seems to jump into the character and run with it, taking Lexie's sass and adding some edge to it. The real star here is Krasinski who, up to this point, is most well known from his work in NBC's The Office. Leatherheads may signal a start of a solid film career for him as he has a great deal of charisma and creates the most memorable character in the film. His performance is vital and is a major highlight of a film desperately looking for more. With the pedigree behind this project, it can't help but feel like a massive disappointment that the end results are so lackluster. Its too fixed on the its influences yet it lacks almost everything that made those films such classics. It serves as an example of a film doomed from its script, something no amount of star power or directorial prowess can recover from.