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Leatherheads
Universal Pictures


6.0

based on 34 reviews
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based on 25 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG-13 for brief strong language

Starring George Clooney, Renée Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Root, Ezra Buzzington, John Vance, and Dan John Miller

Dodge Connolly is a charming, brash football hero determined to guide his team from bar brawls to packed stadiums. But after his players lose their sponsor and the entire league faces certain collapse, Dodge convinces a college football star to join his ragtag ranks. The captain hopes his latest move will help the struggling sport finally capture the country's attention. Welcome to the team Carter Rutherford, America's favorite son. A golden-boy war hero who single-handedly forced multiple German soldiers to surrender in WWI, Carter has dashing good looks and unparalleled speed on the field. This new champ is almost too good to be true, and Lexie Littleton aims to prove that's the case. A cub journalist playing in the big leagues, Lexie is a spitfire newswoman who suspects there are holes in Carter's war story. But while she digs, the two teammates start to become serious off-field rivals for her fickle affections. As the new game of pro football becomes less like the freewheeling sport he knew and loved, Dodge must fight to keep his guys together and get the girl of his dreams. Finding that love and football have a surprisingly similar playbook, however, he has one maneuver he will save just for the fourth quarter... (Universal)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Duncan Brantley Rick Reilly
DIRECTED BY:	George Clooney
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 23, 2008 Theatrical: April 4, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Football, they say, is a game of inches, and so can be moviemaking, and Leatherheads is a completely charming film that comes a few inches from being a great one.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Feisty and good-humored, and if it doesn't have deep characters, it is chock-full of personality.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

It's a pleasant time-killer, nothing more. But nothing less, either.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Clooney and Zellweger play off each other perfectly, delivering their dialogue with the rhythm of a well-choreographed dance and falling in love in the time-honored tradition of '40s romantic comedies.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Leatherheads is most on its game when it's in the game, and in the zone of Clooney's no-bull affection for the faces of his actors.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

In the end, Leatherheads recalls the gloriously dated sentiments of Grantland Rice, one of that era's beloved sportswriters, expressed 17 years earlier in the poem "Alumnus Football."

USA Today Claudia Puig

More amiable than witty and relying heavily on the likability and charm of its lead actors, Leatherheads scores more points as a retro romantic comedy than a football saga.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Leatherheads proceeds agreeably, hitting occasional high notes when it isn't getting bogged down in forced slapstick hi-jinks.

Time Richard Schickel

Maybe the film loses a little steam as it rolls along, but it is still puffing and tooting as Clooney and Zellweger ride off into the sunset -- on a comically raffish period motorcycle, free as the wind.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

For all its other virtues, the supporting casting is lackluster, the script never quite kicks into place as a sports movie and Clooney the director seems to lack the touch that might have set the proceedings on fire as a zany ensemble comedy.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Too much of Leatherheads feels like studied motions, and its charms never plaster over a story that takes forever to get going, and doesn't go too far once it does.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

You can’t read one of Clooney’s endless People profiles without hearing the Cary Grant comparison, but here, he’s all Gable – same rakishness and stubble and tanned-leather basso profundo.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A larky throwback to the breakneck screwballs of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges. Problem is, it isn't breakneck enough.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Far from a touchdown, but you gotta give points to any movie where a character describes its climactic game as a "muddy snoozefest."

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The film moves slowly and steadily, but it's never exactly dull, just mild.

Premiere Ryan Stewart

If the raison d'être of Leatherheads was not to add something to the football movie canon but to have Clooney and Zellweger engage in a screwball banter-fest, then there's no excusing the paltry number of zinger missiles fired over the course of the film.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Leatherheads goes on a good 20 minutes too long, and there's very little in it that makes a lasting impression, but it's easy to watch while it's unspooling -- much like, you know, a lot of Cary Grant comedies.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Leatherheads is as trifling as Clooney’s second movie (“Good Night and Good Luck”) was significant, but that’s okay. It succeeds where so many other romantic comedies fail because of a superior script and because everyone involved has the good sense not to take themselves too seriously.

Slate Dana Stevens

Better than a finger in your eye. It's a perfectly passable, if instantly forgettable, date movie, lushly shot by Newton Thomas Sigel and with a script intelligently versed in American classics like "His Girl Friday" and "Hail the Conquering Hero."

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Reproducing a period-piece screwball comedy for a modern audience turns out to be one playful, self-deprecating wink too many for the star, who also directed Leatherheads.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Clooney, the film's director and star, can't make up his mind how to approach the story. One minute it's a romantic comedy. Then it switches to slapstick, then to screwball comedy before sliding into Frank Capra territory.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Arch and funny in equal measure, this looks like a theatrical non-starter that Clooney fans and football devotees might be tempted to check out down the line on DVD or on the tube.

Village Voice Scott Foundas

For its entire two hours, Leatherheads is rarely less than very promising--and also rarely more.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Sidelined by a script that plays like an imitation of another era’s artifacts. It’s an oxymoron: a mild screwball romance.

Washington Post John Anderson

There's a flatness about the whole enterprise -- like drinking champagne, but from an old house slipper. Re: his performance, Clooney is terrific. His comparison to old movie stars is not just hype. He really does possess the combination of supreme confidence and humility that has been the hallmark of the biggest male Hollywood stars.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A screwball comedy without a charismatic, smart-talking dame is no screwball comedy at all.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Leatherhead's a comedy of stock setups and kooky digressions in which nothing really comes to a head, and running at close to two hours, it lacks the essential brevity of the form.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

There's a jaunty score by Randy Newman, and Clooney, as always, has charm to burn, but here, he's off his game.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Frankly, Zellweger shouldn't have to compete with the ghosts of Rosalind Russell and Carole Lombard, as Clooney forces her to do. It's one thing to evoke the Champagne sophistication of the screwball era; it's another to try to emulate it. Inevitably, the harder you work at capturing madcap fizz, the flatter things are going to feel.

Newsweek David Ansen

The great '30s comedies had edge, bite and relentless forward momentum. Leatherheads is laid-back, amiable and terminally tepid.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

You have to give Leatherheads this much: It's like no other comedy, or movie, out there these days. Clooney, one of our few old-style Hollywood movie stars himself, obviously loves old-fashioned moviemaking.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It exudes goodwill and high spirits, occasionally makes you feel really good, and yet here and there and in some definite ways, it kinda sorta stinks.

Empire Simon Braund

On paper it looks like a gem – roaring 20s setting, verbal fireworks and a silly sport in its rude infancy. In practice, it's way off the pace, far too slow for its screwball pretensions and the kind of film that confuses pastiche with period detail.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

What is harder to comprehend is how Mr. Clooney turned out such a sloppy, haphazard and tonally incoherent piece of work. Leatherheads lurches hectically between Coen brothers-style pastiche and John Saylesian didacticism, while Mr. Clooney works his brow and his jaw and waits in vain for his charm to kick in and save the day.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Adam A. gave it a7:
Entertaining, but not great. However, being the only film about early football wins it some points.

Jay H. gave it a7:
Enjoyable old fashioned film, good pace, fine cast. The period detail is good and the art direction, costumes and cinematography are great. Very entertaining and fun.

Jason R. gave it a0:
I walked out after about 30 minutes so I can not give a detailed review. From what I saw was Hollywood making a high marketed low budget film with an experienced cast that had to fulfill their contractual obligations. Piece of garbage...

Iris gave it a9:
I really liked the movie. I expected it to be a bit more screwball comedy in it. Nevertheless, it was a nice balance between a comedy, romance and sports movie. I'm getting so tired of the sexual, gross out comedies. It was quite nice to see a comedy with some elegance, intelligence and sweetness to it.

Donnie H. gave it a1:
What was up with Renee Zellwegger in this movie? She looked all puffy. But a bad movie all in all. I agree its ripping off movies no one wants to see anymore.

Sheila M. gave it a5:
I like both the stars, Clooney and Zellweger, but the script did not serve them well. It put my husband (an incredible football fan) and me to sleep! Very disappointing! I can not imagine using such terrific actors in a movie with great potential and a lacklustre script.

Chad S. gave it a4:
Never mind Rosalind Russell in Howard Hawks' "His Girl Friday", there's Jennifer Jason Leigh's canny tribute to the motormouthed Russell in Joel & Ethan Coen's underrated "The Hudsucker Proxy" to contend with, and Renee Zellweger simply doesn't measure up. To be fair, not even Leigh, with all that screwball sorcery she conjured as a newspaper woman("I'll stake my Pulitzer on it!") in the 1994 film starring Tim Robbins and Paul Newman, could spin gold out of this canned script. Especially when Zelwegger is opposite the filmmaker, whose direction to his leading lady and to himself should've been, "Faster banter, kill! kill!" because the laughs are nearly nil. Journalistic integrity(or careerism) is the crux of "Leatherheads", in which Lexie Littleton(Zellweger) has to choose between the truth about a football hero's alleged derring-do for the war effort, and perpetuating the myth as the newspaper man did in John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"("When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.") Hmmm. Jessica Lynch, anybody? Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, if you recall, had in his possession, nude photos of the Iraqi war hero. If you go by the film's logic, that the public has a right to know, then by all means, the pornographer should expose the exposed. Muckracking, or proto-tabloid journalism, that's what "Leatherheads" frames its attempt at screwball comedy around.

Leatherheads Universal Pictures

Leatherheads
Universal Pictures