“Leatherheads”
If you go and see “Leatherheads,” you may have a few laughs, you may feel a bit of heartache for some of the characters’ struggles, you may even feel a bit of nostalgia for the Roaring ’20s, or you may walk out of the theater neither uplifted nor depressed.
“Leatherheads” is neither a good nor bad movie. It is floating somewhere in limbo between the two. In other words, you won’t be mad you saw it, but you’ll probably forget it as soon as you exit the theater.
George Clooney (“Ocean’s Eleven”) stars in and directs this tale about how professional football came of age.
Clooney has a place in his heart for these kinds of period pieces. Just like in his movie “Good Night, and Good Luck,” he catches the feel of the time period he’s trying to portray very well.
In “Leatherheads,” we are thrust back into the ’20s, where alcohol was illegal and professional football was a joke.
Clooney plays Dodge Connelly. He loves the game of football and plays for the Duluth Bulldogs, a professional team that has fewer people attend their games as present-day little league teams. Connelly is threatened that his team will go under and no longer be able to support its expenses because of this.
On the other end of the spectrum is Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski “The Office”), a college football player on the Princeton team. Carter is a war hero and a fantastic football player. More than 40,000 people attend his games at Princeton, more to see a real-life war hero rather than watch the game. Connelly recruits Carter to come play for his team in order to legitimize pro football – and make some money.
Rounding out the cast is Renee Zellweger (“Chicago”) who plays a tough-nosed reporter named Lexi Littleton. Lexi is sent to get the real story behind Carter the war hero, because as it turns out, there may be a few hazy parts when it comes to why Carter is actually a war hero. She also inevitably becomes entangled in a love triangle involving Connelly and Rutherford.
“Leatherheads” starts out all football, then slowly drifts into a picture about a man who’s dealing with national attention that he may not deserve. Carter’s story is pretty compelling and would’ve made for a great story on its own. But “Leatherheads” is put together in such a way that the middle of the movie is a completely different movie from the beginning and end.
Like I said, I didn’t hate “Leatherheads,” but I didn’t like it either. It has been filed away in my mental movie filing cabinet under forgettable movies, right next to … well, you see I can’t remember what movie it’s filed next to.
Grade: B-