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Wednesday, April 9, 2008
By Mark Franklin
A & E Reporter
It’s the end of the fourth quarter, the clock’s stopped with only seconds to go, and you’re behind by 3 points. What do you do?
The answer from 1925: CHEAT!
That’s the football scenes from Leatherheads in a nutshell. Leatherheads stars George Clooney as “Dodge” Connolly, a professional football player from the time before pro football was really a legitimate sport. His team, the Duluth Bulldogs, is in financial trouble, having lost their only sponsor. Everyone but Dodge is going back to manual labor, in the fields, the factories, the mines, but Dodge has a plan: turn professional football into a legitimate sport by bringing celebrity into the game.
Dodge finds the perfect solution in Carter Rutherford (played by John Krasinski.) Rutherford, a young WWI war hero famous for forcing an entire German platoon to surrender single-handedly, is finishing his final year at Princeton, and the star player on their football team. Connolly convinces Rutherford and his agent CC (Jonathan Pryce) that he can legitimize football, and Rutherford signs on.
Rutherford’s ability and story seem almost too good to be true, which brings one Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) snooping around. Littleton, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, has her suspicions about the new star’s story, so she tags along for the Bulldogs’ rise to glory in the new world of pro football. But somewhere along the way, Dodge and Carter start an off-field rivalry for her affections, which can only end in disaster. As football becomes more and more organized, and less and less the freewheeling sport he loved, Dodge struggles to keep his team together and to win the girl.Leatherheads is almost like a 110-minute sitcom, with most of the humor coming from the on-field antics of the football teams and the rivalry between Dodge and Carter. Some of the funniest parts, though, are brought about by the tension between Lexie and Dodge, and the fact that during the 1920s prohibition was in full swing. A police raid on a Chicago speakeasy, for instance, leads to Dodge and Lexie making a run for it, knocking out two cops, and taking their coats and hats as disguises.
Clooney’s acting skills truly shine in Leatherheads, especially since he was also directing and co-producing. His Connolly inspires sympathy and mirth while also exuding the sense of slight, self-confident arrogance that he seems to have perfected in recent years. Zellweger’s performance was also good, though her character seemed forced at times, and came off a bit too air-headed, though for a comedy that might be a good thing. I was less impressed with Krasinski. Maybe it was just the fact that I disliked his character, but he seemed so unreal at times that it made a few serious parts too comedic, and a few comedic parts too serious.
Overall, Leatherheads was a good comedy, with generally solid acting and a good story. So, what sort of tactics do you use in that last play of the game? Well among other things, Dodge Connolly would tell you to do what feels right. And then go punch out the ref.
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