Leatherheads

Movie review by The Movie Snob

Leatherheads (D). Well, I was hoping that the stream of bad reviews had so lowered my expectations for this movie that I would enjoy it regardless of its (lack of) quality. Alas, it was not to be. The scene is the Upper Midwest, 1925. George Clooney (TV's ER) is an aging professional football player and hustler who is trying to keep the whole concept of professional football alive in the face of massive public indifference. He sees his chance in the person of Carter "the Bullet" Rutherford (John Krasinski, TV's The Office), a WWI hero and nationally famous footballer for Princeton. He manages to lure Rutherford to play for his team (the Duluth Bulldogs), and attendance soars. But a tough newspaper reporter (Renee Zellweger, Miss Potter) is worming her way into Carter's life on a tip that his war-hero record is trumped up. The makers of the movie shoot for screwball comedy, but without much success. Zellweger is miscast, and she and Clooney have no chemistry. The inherently likeable Krasinski plays an inherently likeable Rutherford, and when the movie abuses him it makes the movie itself unlikeable. I expected to leave disappointed, but I left actively annoyed.