Leatherheads – DVD Review

Leatherheads is a fun romp, but the film seems to lose its way during the second half.

In 1925, Dodge Connelly (George Clooney) is the captain of a struggling professional football team. In the 20s, professional football was looked upon as a joke and college football was the place were all the money and glory were to be found.

Pro football was basically the Wild West as there wasn’t a football commission to make sure that everyone stuck to the rules. In fact, pro teams were folding and Dodge’s team, the Bulldogs, finds that the team they were traveling to play against has indeed folded. Dodge also discovers that his team is flat broke and he sends his players back to their day jobs as well. Enter Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (John Krasinski) - a fresh faced college player who is raking in the big money thanks to his status as a war hero. Dodge gets the big idea to recruit him for the Bulldogs and talks to Rutherford’s manager, C.C. Frazier (Jonathan Pryce), about the big money to be made doing this (which, of course, peaks the greedy C.C.’s interest). The last member of our players is Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), a Chicago reporter. Her paper has been approached by one of Rutherford’s war buddies saying that the tale of Rutherford capturing a German patrol singlehandedly is not true. So Lexie has been assigned to find out if it’s true, with the promise of an assistant editorship if she comes through.

Leatherheads starts off rather strong and has a certain “O’Brother Where Art Thou?” feel to it. I especially liked the interplay between Lexie and Dodge as it felt like Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. Insert Krasinski and you potentially have a comedy of errors in the romantic trio. The problem is that it never really goes that way. What scuttles the film a bit is that the comedic first half of the film, especially a bit with Clooney and Zellweger getting caught in a speakeasy, doesn’t really jibe with the more dramatic second half of the film where Krasinski’s hero is tarnished. I was expecting a funnier finale, there are some giggles, but there’s not the wackiness that I was expecting. So was the film bad? Nope, I enjoyed it very much (and I’m not that much of a Clooney fan) but thought it was uneven. I always like films that look at historical events that aren’t exactly given much publicity. The early days of football are definitely one that isn’t covered much. It’s a bit shocking that in the 1920s it was college football where all the money was and “Pro” football was the bastard stepchild. Clooney has a game cast, but the show feels uneven and I wished he would’ve stuck with the 1940s style screwball style that he and Zellweger were succeeding with at in the start of the film.

Leatherheads is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include a commentary by director/star George Clooney and producer Grant Heslov. Next are 8 minutes of deleted scenes and a 6 minute making of called “Football’s Beginning.” The 9 minute “No pads, no fear” looks at how they shot the rowdy football scenes. The 3 minute “George Clooney, a leatherhead prankster” shows Clooney shooting a scene for the film that turned out to be a joke on the actors. Finally, there’s a 5 minute featurette on the visual effects of the film. I’m always a bit mixed about George. He reminds me of stars of old, a combo of Cary Grant and Clark Gable, but just when I start to like him I think of what he said about Chuck Heston. I did like Leatherheads, which also reminded me of those grand old films, but it seems to lose some steam in the second half. I wish he would’ve made it more of a screwball comedy instead on trying to “drama” up the second half. When it was all said and done I wanted to rewatch the beginning of the movie for the chemistry in the main trio of players. All in all I liked this effort.