Review of Leatherheads (2008) by Luke P — 03 Feb 2009

For his third directorial outing (after Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night & Good Luck), George Clooney attempts to reinvigorate and resurrect a forgotten genre; the screwball comedy, the kind of film that actors like Cary Grant, Irenne Dunne and Rosalind Russell made famous.

Clooney's film evokes the 1920's time period excellently, with superb production and costume design and a fantastic score from Randy Newman. However, where it fails is in it's pacing. His Girl Friday (arguably the finest screwball comedy ever) plays at such a frenetic pace throughout that there is barely time to breath.

Leatherheads, by comparison, meanders along at a crawl; it stops and starts when it should flow. Clooney looks and acts the part, but Renee Zellweger struggles with the speed of the dialogue, and her plot-line (journalist seduces and tries to uncover/embarrass a media hero) was handled better by Jennifer Jason Leigh and the Coen Brothers in 1994's The Hudsucker Proxy.

The film does work in it's depiction of the genesis of American football, and how marketing, sponsership and corporate greed entered the game, but as an attempt to capture the electric pace of the screwball comedy, it falls short of the mark.