Military Movies - Military Times

Light on his feet

George Clooney’s new comedy, “Leatherheads,” could serve as Exhibit A in any conversation that laments how “they just don’t make movies like they used to.”

Working off a script by former Sports Illustrated reporters Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, Clooney shifts effortlessly from serious-actor mode (see “Michael Clayton,” “Syriana”) to charming schmoozer mode (see “Ocean’s 11” through “Ocean’s 34”) to direct and star in this solid period piece.

Its tone evokes the screwball comedies of the 1930s and ’40s, and its look compares favorably to the 1973 Newman-Redford classic “The Sting.”

It’s 1925, and Dodge Connelly (Clooney) is a football player. Unfortunately, he’s a pro football player at a time when the college game reigns supreme.

In contrast, Dodge’s team, the Duluth Bulldogs, are boozing, brawling, blue-collar boys playing free-for-all, anything-goes contests in dusty back lots before crowds that swell into the dozens.

To save his ragtag team and the floundering league, Dodge hits upon the idea of recruiting phenomenally popular college football star Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (John Krasinski of “The Office”), a highly decorated veteran of the Great War.

Dodge is nonplussed, however, when Carter and his oily agent (Jonathan Pryce) begin taking over the team. And he’s even more chagrined to find himself smitten with Chicago Tribune reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), who has shown up to ingratiate herself with Carter while pursuing a hidden agenda — she’s chasing a tip that Carter’s war exploits are bogus.

(The real story, re-created in an amusing flashback, shows that Carter happened to be in the worst place at the best time.)

The hallmark of the greatest screwball comedies is snappy patter, and “Leatherheads” doesn’t skimp on that score. The sharpest barbs come from Lexie, a woman decades ahead of her time, armed with a sharp mind and an even sharper tongue.

In one scene, Lexie gives a long once-over to the young ditz on Dodge’s arm and says, “I thought you had to be 21 to get in here.”

Dodge: “Oh, she’s 21.”

Lexie: “I meant her IQ.” Zing!

Dodge also gets in a great variation on the adage “You’re only as young as you feel” that would earn me a wrist-slap from my editors if I tried to sneak it into this column.

The rich production design comes to the fore in a couple of speakeasy scenes, one featuring Dodge and Lexie in a smoldering interlude and the other an all-out brawl between the Bulldogs and some Army boys which, despite its ferocity, never distracts the seen-it-all-before piano player from his ivory-tickling duties.

The film’s main flaw is that it never gets very deep into its lead characters, which makes it tough to latch onto someone to root for.

We get a fair degree of personal background on Carter, but the character proves stubbornly unsympathetic. Although his embellished war record is a fluke, he passively allows it to stand until late in the film. And even when he finally owns up, he never seems overly perturbed by his glaring moral failings.

It’s not much easier to pull for Dodge, for whom there’s virtually no background. It’s as if we’re expected to get behind the character simply because he’s played by George Clooney.

And Lexie doesn’t even figure in this equation. Sassy patter and brassy attitude aside, she’s merely what Hitchcock used to call the “McGuffin” — the thing that sets other things in motion, in this case the catalyst that pits the smooth young hotshot against the aging, grizzled veteran.

Still, if Clooney and Co. are splashing in the shallow end of the pool here, at least they’re up front about it. “Leatherheads” is purposely designed to be the kind of light, breezy, polished fare that’s almost always in short supply at your local octoplex.

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