George Clooney does double duty here as he stars and takes the director's seat in "Leatherheads" set in the roaring mid-twenties after the Great War. Clooney plays the role of Coach Dodge Donnelly who's a veteran in the sport of football. While a lot of the football teams are progressively becoming defunct, Donnelly the ever-so-optimistic person believes that football can flourish by making it professional and could potentially draw record-breaking crowds.Dodge feels that crowds will likely be drawn if they saw players who are masters of their craft and are actually getting paid while their performing.Renee Zellweger is the female lead here as a determined reporter, Lexie Littleton who's interviewing a young, handsome college football star who also happens to be a war hero named Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) Lexie only meet Donnelly only by a sheer twist of irony. Donnelly sees stars in this dashing young star and hopes that his fan following comes with him as well. Lexie wants to interview Rutherford to know more about him so while they await for this young upstart, they exchange some witty words with each other.Rutherford decides to give pro-football a try and surely enough, his tribe of followers gather around as the sport of football becomes increasing in popularity. As Rutherford becomes a touchdown machine, the sport itself became more rejuvenated than it has ever been. Sadly like in all movies, good things are not always what they seem to be. From Lexie's interviews and research, we're soon to discover that Rutherford is not the war hero that everyone claims he is. After using under-handed tactics to seek the truth about Rutherford, Lexie discovers that during the war, Rutherford gave up his fight to the Germans and his Company caught him in the act and all the facts have been sadly misconstrued. Lexi, being so honest is determined to leak the truth about Rutherford which would potentially ruin his good name, ruin his career and kill the sport of professional football for good.Sure you'd think that with a stellar cast that has Zellweger, Clooney and Krasinski in the leads it's going to be a great period piece film with lots of detailed history and plenty of nostalgia. Right? Wrong! The only real good qualities about "Leatherheads" is the soft soothing sounds of music from the 1920's. Songs you'll surely like to hum along to as you struggle to settle down to this movie. Another positive note is that the scenery is very sublime. That's about all that is good about "Leatherheads". Don't take my word for it, there was a patron more interesting in scarfing down his food and going back to the lobby for more, another man next to me snoozed the whole time and me I was just counting the hours until this film ended.The only two thespians that stood out from the boring bunch are Clooney and Zellweger who seem to engage in some pretty interesting dialogue and are the only ones who seem to have the only funny lines in this movie. Krasinski was very wooden and stoic and seem to lacking in any kind of team spirit. There's nothing engaging about him and is only on to look like an idiot.Some of the fight scenes are almost laughable (and not in a good way) and show no importance to the movie at all. Even Rutherford and Donnelly get into a confrontation over Lexie's faux affections and even if they threw fists at each other 100 times, they should have at least drawn some blood or bruised after one blow.For the jocks watching this to see some good ol' football, well forget it, the scenes were both awkward and disjointed. Even the last scene lacks in any significant climax to it. Rutherford gets traded to Chicago and his idle worshippers go along with him. And Donnelly and Rutherford's team duke in out in the mud like pigs fighting in a sty and the always tiresome story plods to who wins this epic game. It doesn't seem to tie in with the movie and the scenes are quite dull.All I can say is that "Leatherheads" is film that truly is mostly style and nothing substantial about it. I felt like I wasn't drawn to the characters and I felt like I dd not care what happens to them. With the only good performances by Clooney and Zellwager and the soothing musical score, I can not recommend this movie to anyone.

I rented Leatherheads last night betting on George Clooney's ability to bring back the look and feel of great 30s and 40s movies...and lost. The movie is about the maturing of sandlot professional football into the modern NFL and the parallel maturation of Clooney's 45 year old team captain into a real boy (so to speak). Renee Zellweger plays a feisty reporter and there is an attempt at a Stacey & Hepburn sort of rapid screwball comedy thing between the two which never quite coalesces. The movie similarly never gets going and the handful of plot turns aren?t particularly interesting. Also there are a few unrealistic elements such as the newly hired NFL commissioner?s ability to dictate to the Chicago press what story they will print about a falsified World War I story. Also in the final set of scenes Clooney?s Dodge Connelley stays up all night drinking, gets into a bar brawl, saves the girls and then successfully captains a professional football team ? pretty good for a later-middle age man in the 1920s. Go see Michael Clayton where Clooney just acts ? best movie of 2007.

Set in the late 1920's, Leatherheads, directed by George Clooney, takes a look into the formation and legitimization of professional football in the United States. The film is not the best of Clooney's work as a director, but it definitely got me to laugh and kept me interested with a plot that thickens as the movie progresses in this romantic, screwball, sports comedy. Now that may sound like a mouthful of genres thrown together, but taking place in the world of football, then filled with field workers, coal miners, and generally the brutes who could not make it into college, the film incorporates a love triangle between Dodge Connelly (George Clooney), Carter "The Bullet" Rutherford(John Krasinski), and Lexie Littleton(Renée Zellweger) along with a double plot. Early in the film it is revealed that Dodge's team, the Deluth Bulldogs, has gone bankrupt and can't afford to keep paying its players or travel to away games, which is also the reality of many other teams at the time. College football, on the other hand, is extremely popular, especially the sensational Carter Rutherford, a war hero (he single handedly stopped a squad of German soldiers while in combat) that is unstoppable on the field and has dashing good looks. Dodge plans to save the dying professional football league by recruiting Rutherford to play for the Deluth Bulldogs. In the midst of this, Lexie Littleton is a young, attractive, spitfire reporter assigned to do a story on the country's youngest and biggest war hero; however, the goal of her story is to find a fault in the man, to discredit the young hero and find out the truth. All three of our characters then find themselves together as Dodge coincidentally meets Lexie right before he talks Rutherford into playing for the Bulldogs. The movie goes on to follow the three of them in their tour of the east coast, playing football and trying to uncover the truth, with lots of screwball comedy along the way and some surprising twists in the story.The actors chosen for this film were an okay cast. George Clooney is a very strong, charismatic actor with a strong background from films such as "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) and "O Brother Where Art Thou?" (2000). He plays a convincing role in this film as well, making the audience believe that he really loves playing football with his friends and doesn't want to lose it just because there's no more money in it. His character does develop well throughout the movie as he faces the issues in front of him, and does so with a charm like any other man from the '20s would have. John Krasinski, most well known as Jim from NBC's "The Office", plays a much better role in this film then he did in "License to Wed" (2007). He fits the character perfectly as he is able to connect with both Clooney and Zellweger, even though he is much younger. Zellweger is the only character that wasn't the best possible cast in the movie for Littleton's character. Although she does look like she could be straight out of the 20's with her costumes and attitude in the film, her chemistry with Clooney and Krisinksi seems to be a little forced, like they are acting, as opposed to a flowing chemistry that makes the acting disappear and brings the film to life. The other problem is the age difference between the characters; it's a love triangle between different generations, this is a cause of the poor chemistry in some of the scenes. Overall each actor fits their own respective character and plays them well, and with Clooney's and Krasinksi's strong background in comedy, it really makes for a fun, playful film as they throw quip's back and forth at each other and try to woo Zellweger along the way. Aside from the acting, the art direction of this film was done excellently by Christa Munro and Scott T. Ritenour. The movie is scripted to take place in the 20s, and it looks like it was filmed then. Every single outfit seen in the movie is tailored and looks completely authentic to the time period (Costume designer: Louise Frogley) . The main outfits seen in the film are all custom fit suits, with common colors, such as black and tan. The military uniforms seen are also all accurate to the times, simple yet authoritative, and accurate to the uniforms used during World War II. The vehicles are all old Model T's etc, and Clooney rides around on a 1918 Indian motorcycle(which is actually an electric replica, but looks real nonetheless). The main transportation used in the film is by train, which was a new and popular way to travel during that era. The uniforms worn during the football games are also accurate to what was worn in the 20's by football players. The film even includes a scene that takes place in a speakeasy, as prohibition was still in effect at that time. The biggest downfall of the movie is the poor chemistry between Clooney and Zellweger, as they are the main love interests of the film, but their mismatched casting does not take away too much from the enjoyment of the film. The film is very appealing to the eye because of its accuracy of what the '20s looked like. The jokes throughout the film are also good for a laugh and are sure to at least make you smile. The plot of the film also starts somewhat slow, but the jokes start early and allow you to get past that. As the film progresses and more is revealed and the characters start to change and develop, the film becomes more enjoyable and continually draws you in, especially to find out what happens to the Bulldogs after signing Rutherford and what is the true story behind his heroism. This is definitely a film worth seeing for a good laugh and good time.

I became a fan of George Clooney watching him as Billy in The Perfect Storm. But I must say I watched this movie for its Renee factor much more than anything else.Leatherheadsis quite a conventional unconventional movie. It got no save the world plot, and yet has more than one plot intertwined within another series of plots. Just like ordinary life. The movie is quite subtle and has a plot of a suspected war hero, a failing football player, the birth of professional football and a teeny weenie romance as a side dish. Each scene seems honest and short. And sometimes shocking. There are no technicalities and the entire movie follows no particular rule of movie making or story telling. Just like the tagline says, this is a movie before the rules where there.Renee is a reporter sent to check the stories of an alleged war hero who now plays football but wants to study in Princeton. Clooney is struggling in football with a rough gritty team that's got all the usual comical characters. The forty year old man fights over the thirty old lady with the twenty year old boy. The villain is the new chief of professional football who brings in the rules to the game. There is one final football match that sets into concrete everyone's character. And the movie is over before you know it.Its a slapstick comedy in the 1920's. Its light and easily subject to too much criticism. Its worth a watch.