Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
5/4/08
Like
a young actress who sells issues of Maxim more easily than movie tickets,
George Clooney has done a sensational job parlaying the respect of critics
and peers, old school movie star good looks and a seemingly bottomless
well of self-confidence into a position on Hollywood's A-List without many
hits to back it up. Not that I'm complaining: he's one of the
best actors working today, capable of delivering shattering, subtle dramatic
work as in last year's Michael Clayton.
But I've got a confession to make. My affection for Clooney's work
goes back a bit before he caught America's attention on TV's ER,
back to a time when he starred in one of the funniest movies no one's ever
seen, 1988's Return of the Killer Tomatoes. It began a decades-long
love affair with the “other” George Clooney, the comic goofball willing
to do almost anything for a laugh. His performances in Oh Brother,
Where Art Thou? and Intolerable Cruelty are among the funniest
in recent memory, and I'd go so far as to say that when he wants to be,
Clooney is the funniest guy in the movies today. So it's a good thing
he was on hand to act in his latest directorial outing, Leatherheads.
It's an overreaching story about the early days of pro football and a time
when good old American barnstorming gave way to big business and the horror
of “rules”, but it's light on its' feet and nicely nails the rhythms of
old-school screwball comedy. Just don't expect to pass a test on
what happened the next day.
It's
1925, and there are two very different kinds of football being played in
America. There's college football, played for free by popular athletes
like Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) before huge, cheering crowds.
Then there's pro football, played for money by nobodies like “Dodge” Connelly
(George Clooney) before almost no one at the razor's edge of solvency.
In fact, when we first meet his Duluth Bulldogs, they've just lost a game
because they lost their football and had to forfeit. Teams are going
bankrupt all around the league and when it's Duluth's turn to go under,
Dodge hatches a brilliant scheme. He approaches CC Frazier, Carter's
“promoter”, and cuts a deal where the college star and war hero will play
for his team for a massive cut of the gate. Dodge also meets reporter
Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), who's following Carter around to write
an article about him for her newspaper. A love triangle quickly develops,
but what neither man knows is that her real mission is to prove that the
Sgt. York-like legend that surrounds Rutherford is a lie. Dodge's
plan works, and pro football is finally played in real stadiums before
real crowds, but can the game he loves survive the big time?
It's
only fitting that a man whose appeal is a throwback to the movie stars
of old is amassing a body of work as director (along with Confessions
of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night, and Good Luck) that pines
away for a simpler time when the marriage of entertainment and big business
was less of an influence on our daily lives. But of the three movies,
only Good Night, and Good Luck has been able to drive home the points
it's actually trying to make. Yes, Leatherheads contrasts
simple folk who just wanna play football with a big business machine complete
with evil commissioner (an impressively dictatorial Peter Garety), but
every time it tries to make “rules” a dirty word, it chokes on the gesture.
A lengthy sequence where a big game is virtually scoring-free because of
them would play a lot better if football games actually were this way in
the Big Business era. The script is at least a few drafts away from
being more than just a chance for actors to play at screwball comedy.
It's
to the movie's good fortune that they do it well. Clooney, as I've
mentioned, is just a funny guy, and he's better than anybody going at making
a funny face (his reaction shots during a lengthy fistfight with Carter
are hilarious). Zellweger seems to belong in the past more than most
of her contemporaries (as in Cinderella Man), and also skillfully
picks up both the screwball rhythm and the “lady reporter” shtick of the
movies of the time. Krasinski does a good job navigating a role that
starts off as a good guy but gradually shades toward villainy. Stephen
Root is fun as a drunken sportswriter and Price is always good at putting
on a greedy face.
Leatherheads
is funny in its' own modest way, and I was happy I saw it. I just
wished that it had either sharpened its' satirical points or abandoned
them altogether. The time would have been better spent allowing its'
director to make a few more funny faces. |
