Leatherheads
George Clooney has worked with an interesting assembly of directors, and spent years on episodic television. What I just figured out about Clooney the director is that he is a crafter of moments more than a story teller. He’s clearly watched and learned from Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), the Coen brothers, and Steven Soderbergh. The Oceans 11-13 movies are just stylish scrapbooks, Michael Clayton is ponderous moments dropped into a big mess. Clooney’s excellent Good Night and Good Luck was supported by the strong storyline of true life events in a significant political time, and the weight that the current-day echoes brought to every scene. What on earth am I rambling on about? It all culminates in this movie, Leatherheads, which is a gorgeous, charming, quaintly stylish movie comprised almost exclusively of moments.
The moments that comprise this movie are flush with beauty and character and portent, but not so much content. I don’t mean to equate Clooney the director with say, Michael Bay, but the stories he is telling are light things with little arc and hardly any motivations, and less resolution. They are, however, packed to the gills with awesome period (1925) feel and detail. Ken Burns documentary-style, Leatherheads occasionally freeze-frames sepia shots of the action, which is kind of precious but also heightens the “this is a true story” feel of the movie. I don’t know if it was based on a true story, but it’s the kind of story that feels like it could have been true.
John Krasinski (The Office) is a natural to play a superstar college boy war hero athlete, with his aw-shucks sincerity and enormous, accessible grin (and his 1000 yard stare perfected weekly in his television life). Clooney is grizzled but charming trailing in his wake. I keep coming back to the word charming, it’s the one word that sums up the whole movie – in both its positive and negative connotations. If only Renee Zellweger had not been in this film, John and George could have used their formidable wit in a real sparring match. Amy Adams, do you have a time machine? (Where is the Renee from Down With Love? This one looks post-chemical peel and deformation surgery.)
Leatherheads takes a subject hat I don’t care about – football – and brings us back to its adorable, leather padded genesis. It was a game I would have watched back then, a real game with teams interested in earning points, and not just a horrible parody of a metaphor selling violence and athletic shoes. The period detail is exquisite, from trains to fashions to slang to music to newspapers, and the soundtrack is diverting as well. Clooney pads his cast with great Coens-esque faces and witty bon mots, but the story fails to engage on any meaningful level, despite all its fractured merits. I hope Clooney keeps directing – his moments are great, and if he can just make them stretch out to 90 minutes, he’ll give us some real classics.
MPAA Rating PG-13
Release date 4/4/08
Time in minutes 113
Director George Clooney
Studio Universal Pictures
