Leatherheads (PG)

5:10pm Friday 11th April 2008

AFTER directing period pieces Good Night And Good Luck and Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, George Clooney stays in the past for his third directorial effort. The style, too, harks back to the golden days of cinema - the screwball comedy as typified by Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn.

Here we have Clooney, who's always had something of the old-fashioned matinee idol about him, and Renee Zellweger, an actress who's shown she looks good in old clothes in Chicago.

They do possess the necessary spark and machine-gun fast repartee needed for a film like Leatherheads. There's an undeniable on-screen chemistry between Clooney's 1920s brash footballer Dodge Connolly and Zellweger's brittle journalist Lexie Littleton in a rom-com set in the early days of America's pro-football league.

She joins the boys on the field to expose the war hero fibs told by rising football star Carter "The Bullet"

Rutherford (John Krasinski, from the US version of The Office). Her editor (Jack Thompson) wants her to bring down this hero and he'll reward her with an assistant editor's job.

Clooney's Connolly, a footballer whose advanced years mean his playing days are numbered, is trying to hang on to his team, which is struggling for money and crowds in an era before rules were introduced and when players tended to continue their bar room punch-ups on the field.

The footballer and the journalist fall for each other- no surprise there, which is where Leatherheads fall down. Despite the sparky sparring of the two leads, and Jonathan Pryce being sneaky on the sidelines as a dishonest agent, the film emerges as enjoyable and okay, rather than exceptional and original.

Leatherheads is more a testimony to Clooney's diverse directing talent than an addition to the rollcall of classic screwball comedies. And a little bit of American football goes a long way.

Starring: George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce
Running time: 113 mins
Rating: Three stars

Editor's Choice