If you were being nice, you could say that “Leatherheads” was a good concept that didn’t quite measure up in execution. If you were being a bit pithy, you could say that it was a little dull, the kind of movie that makes you go, “Enh.” If you were being brutally honest, you could say that it pretty much blew.
“Leatherheads” represents a period that has been relatively untouched by the cinematic world, so in that sense, it’s a neat concept and a promising piece. You saw the potential there for a “Bull Durham” type of exploration of how early professional football mirrored minor-league baseball; of course, you could also form a pretty compelling argument that “Bull Durham” would have blown pretty severely if not for Susan Sarandon.
The script for “Leatherheads” was written by former Sports Illustrated columnist and current ESPN sellout Rick Reilly and Duncan Brantley, a colleague at SI, and was directed by George Clooney—which explains a lot. According to Clooney, the plot was supposed to be loosely based on Harold "Red" Grange, who signed with the Chicago Bears out of the University of Illinois in 1925, the day after his last collegiate game. In this scenario, the Grange character is brought to life by John Krasinski in the form of Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford, a star at Princeton and a war hero. Clooney plays “Dodge” Connelly, a washed-up gridiron great who convinces Rutherford to leave Princeton early and turn pro, in an effort to save his bankrupt professional football team (obviously, long before the rise of the NFL).
Rutherford is so All-American that you expect to see him helping old ladies across the street, lifting cats out of trees at halftime and going home directly after the game for a piece of Mom’s apple pie. The problem is that, even though he’s touted as a war hero on top of everything else, the dirty little secret is that that isn’t exactly true. Predictably, Connelly and Rutherford begin vying for the attentions of reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger, who succeeds in all the way opening her eyes in this movie), who has learned the true story behind Rutherford’s war escapades. Lexie is torn between following a tremendous scoop and letting a country who needs heroes go on believing in Rutherford. The ending has a rather unique twist, but even that is somewhat bland and misses the mark.
Clooney comes across more as his somewhat slapstick character from "O Brother, Where Art Thou," Everett, then probably intended, though Zellweger was actually pretty darn good in the throwback role as a wisecracking newspaperwoman (though I’m admittedly a sucker for the “world’s tallest midget” line; it always makes me chuckle). The biggest problem lies with Krasinsky, who, through no real fault of his own, is extremely hard to take seriously in a real role—he’s simply always going to be Jim from “The Office.” It’s decidedly not his fault, but that doesn’t change the fact that I found myself expecting on every play to see Dwight come soaring off the edge of the screen to clothesline Jim along the sideline, followed by a brief video interview in which Dwight describes growing up tackling llamas on his family beet farm while Mose kicked actual, literal pig skin around.
Of course, this flick had more problems than overcoming the Krasinski/Jim dynamic, but it certainly didn’t help. The bottom line is that “Leatherheads” fell apart in a trite plot, poor direction and questionable casting. Which would have been OK if you didn’t get the sense that there was a cool movie idea in there somewhere.
Oh well, I’m sure Clooney will land on his feet, most likely by amusing himself by playing grabass with his metro buddies as they make “Ocean’s 43”. And I’m sure the new season of “The Office” will be hysterical. As for Zellweger, I don’t know—how many fat Bridget Jones’s can she honestly be expected to play?
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