Leatherheads is the second movie I've seen in a row that I would describe as a near miss. There's a lot to like about Leatherheads. The creators, including director and star George Clooney, clearly have an affection for old time comedies like His Girl Friday where a guy who spends his entire life engaged in various degrees of hustling and con artistry meets a strong willed, independent woman who prospers because she's smarter than any of the male characters yet also suffers because won't pretend that she isn't smarter than any of the male characters. Fortunately, the hustler is played by George Clooney. Unfortunately, the woman is played by Renee Zellweger.
I am not a neutral party when it comes to Renee Zellweger. What other perceive as her personal charms and skills as an actress have always been lost on me. I've always assumed that the Oscar she received for her role in Cold Mountain was awarded because she slept with the thousands of people who voted for her as it certainly wasn't because of the annoying fake Southern accent she used. For me, she ranges from, "Didn't suck," like in Jerry Maguire or the Bridget Jones movies to, "So bad that the theater it's showing in should be burned down and the ground salted so that nothing shall ever grow there again," which is what happened after I saw her in Chicago, a musical where even Richard Gere outsang her.
Which brings us back to her role in Leatherheads, a movie set in the world of 1920's football. She plays Lexie Littleton, a Chicago reporter trying to expose a college football player's claim of being a war hero as a lie. The player's name is Carter Rutherford, played by The Office's John Krasinski and typing that makes me think how much better his Office co-star Jenna Fisher would have been as Lexie but, oh well, it's dangerous to obsess. Anyway, Carter tries to...you know who else would have been better as Lexie? Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Julia Roberts or any of the dozen other names that have popped in to my head just now. What the hell, Clooney? Were all those other women trapped in a cave or something? Did Renee Zellweger have pictures of you with a goat? GRRRR!
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the plot. George Clooney's aptly named character Dodge Connelly manipulates Carter, a college football star, to join his professional team that is about to go under due to ever falling attendance. In the process, they both fall for Lexie and end up in a series of events that can only be described as a collision course with wackiness as the consequences of Dodge's half assed plan to make money for his team ends up changing the freewheeling, nearly lawless game of professional football into the strictly regulated sport that it is today. There's a funny scene where referees unfamiliar with the new rules have to constantly check their rule books and end up coming up with new ones on the fly and writing them into the book.
That and other good scenes are what drag me forcefully into giving this movie a very weak recommendation. The good stuff outweighs the dumb and boring parts and I'm going to assume that most of you don't feel as strongly about Renee Zellweger as I do so maybe you'll like it even more than I did.
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