Review of Leatherheads (2008) by Tim T — 29 Jan 2009

I went off this about 5 minutes in because the start is 5 solid minutes of American football. And relentless, horrific, honky-tonky plinky-plinky down-tempo jazz. On every possible scene. This film was about an hour too long.

And the jazz. It just went on and on. I wanted to like it because in theory I like the cast, but so far John Krasinski only succeeds as the hapless loser in the show "The Office", he doesn't translate to the big screen, at least not so far.

And George Clooney is just way too slick and smooth and in love with himself, why should I get involved in caring about that?? And I hate to be sexist and ageist, but the sparky tough-talking dame of a journalist, played by Renee Zellweger, was just too old for the role.

She just didn't really fit. The plot was long-winded and slow - perhaps the point was that this was a great big sloppy overblown love-letter to the early days of professional football - but to this jaded Britisher it was just a lot of people falling in mud and people spouting incomprehensible sports jargon.

They were talking about all the things that "Dodge" Clooney wasn't allowed to do in the scrum - what was it again, putting lipstick on a pig? He wasn't allowed to do something pig-related certainly, and there was hiding a pig in a poke, or squashing a sausage down the stairs, or jumping the mashed toad or something, anyway, about three bizarre sporting sayings in a row, and I was all scratchy-of-head about it.

All I can say is I wish he had done something pig-related in the middle of the scrum, it may have been a ground-breaking moment of bestiality that so far Clooney's avoided in his career (a little cowardly of him, if I'm honest) but it would have rendered the film an R-rating and made it about a hundred times more interesting.

As long as they'd played some pig-related sleazy jazz music, just as a change from all that horrible "piany" jazz. Perhaps George Clooney needs some more honest friends around him so when he makes nearly-two-hour long films where nothing much happens they will say "Oi! Clooney! No! And while you're at it, stop mentioning pigs when there patently aren't any pigs or other farmyard animals in this film!" Oh apart from that cow early on, watching the footballers play.

She was beautifully filmed. Anyway. My advice is don't see this film unless you just want to listen to some really tedious jazz. Maybe jazz fans like that sort of thing, and who am I to judge.