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Leatherheads
Movie Stats & Links |
| Starring: |
George Clooney, Renee Zellweger,
John Krasinski, Stephen Root |
| MPAA Rated: |
PG-13 |
| Released By: |
Universal Pictures |
| Web Site: |
www.leatherheadsmovie.com |
| Kiddie Movie: |
They drop the
s-bomb a couple of times, but they'd probably be bored with
the loved story. |
| Date Movie: |
She might find
both George Clooney and John Krasinski hotter than you.
Good luck! |
| Gratuitous Sex: |
Some kissing and
innuendo. |
| Gratuitous
Violence: |
Lot's of people
fighting each other, but in sport's comedy fashion. |
| Action: |
Nah. |
| Laughs: |
Not enough. |
| Memorable
Scene: |
Carter explaining
to Lexie exactly how he became a war hero. |
| Memorable
Quote: |
Nothing really. |
| Directed By: |
George Clooney |
| Produced By: |
Grant Heslov,
Casey Silver |
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Leatherheads
A Movie Review |
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A friend of mine might really be on to something because she
wrote me that she generally only likes movies less than two
hours long and with happy endings. I wrote her back with a
rating scale based on just those two criteria, 4 or 5 stars
for a movie not too long with a happy ending, and zero stars
for just the opposite. Using her rating scale, even though
"Leatherheads" clocks in at just under 2 hours, I still felt
it too long though it did have a happy ending, leaving it at
2 ½ stars out of 5. Maybe by shear coincidence, that’s the
same rating I'm going to give it.
So, "Leatherheads" is too long with a happy ending. 2 ½
stars out of 5. I guess my reviewing is done! Have a nice
day!
Oh, alright, I’ll give you a little bit more about
"Leatherheads" and why I only gave it 2 ½ stars, but it
might be time for me to add a separate "Dudette Scale" to
our reviews. Anyway, here’s the story…
The year is 1925 and pro football is on the verge of
collapse. George Clooney is Dodge Connolly, the leader of
the Duluth Bulldogs. Grasping at anything to keep the sport
alive, he reaches out to college phenom and war hero Carter
(John Krasinski) to join the Bulldogs, thereby giving the
sport some legitimacy and have someone to bring in the
crowds. Along for the ride, though, is Lexie Littleton
(Renee Zellweger), who is dispatched by the Chicago Daily
Tribune to discredit Carter’s war hero-ness. Naturally she
is attracted to Carter because he is the young, tall,
strapping lad, but as it turns out she is more attracted to
the older, sharp-mouthed Dodge. So, yea, the two dudes throw
some punches over a woman, Lexie finds that it’s really hard
to discredit a war hero, football gets some rules, and we
find that playing football in the mud sometimes isn’t that
much fun.
I guess, story aside, the problem I really had with
"Leatherheads" was that it seemed to try too hard to be too
many types of movies. There was the hint of romantic comedy
with the love triangle that didn’t really need to be one,
there was the hint of screwball sport’s comedy brought down
by the love story, then there was the "we want to be
serious" aspect to the movie that crept in at times. When a
movie does that I think it loses focus, adds too many scenes
to the movie, thereby causing it to drag on too long.
Clooney was his usually charming self and Zellweger was
great in her role as the sassy newspaper reporter almost
torn if she should run the "He’s not the war hero we were
told" story, but in a role ripe for a lot of funny, I
thought Stephen Root as Suds, the beat reporter, was wasted.
Oh, and one more thing, something I hate, is when a movie
gives away the ending before the ending with an unnecessary
foreshadowing comment. In this case the comment was from
Lexie while she’s watching the mud-bowl, climactic, football
game at the end of the movie, and she mentions that since
everyone is so muddy, well, you can’t tell who anyone is.
Sure enough, not being able to tell who anyone is comes into
play. Ugh!
So, with too many things dragging this movie down, I’m
giving "Leatherheads" 2 ½ stars out of 5. I suppose I could
have saved a lot of my day just using the "Dudette Scale"
rather than typing this full review, but what fun would that
be?
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!!
L8R!!! |
