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Renee Zellweger and George Clooney star in the comedy Leatherheads |
Touchdown! Clooney scores in reel Leather
LEATHERHEADS
Directed by George Clooney
Certificate 12a
FROM the title, I somehow imagined I was going to see an action-packed film about First World War pilots in leather flying helmets, goggles and shouts of “Chocks away!”
But we’re going to have to leave that for later in the year, when the German cinema comes up with its own slant on the Red Baron, otherwise known as ace fighter Baron Manfred Von Richthofen. I can’t wait.
Meantime, we’re left with American pro football, circa 1925, when they did wear leather helmets, brown jodhpurs and long socks, chasing a rugger ball around a pitch with hardly anyone watching or caring.
That’s until Dodge Connolly comes along, in the handsome shape of George Clooney, a veteran manager desperate to get the game on the map.
The trouble is, his team are a bunch of ageing no-hopers picked from the mines and cotton fields of the mid-West who play for the love of the game.
Gorgeous George’s team are a rough and ready lot, and most games end with a mass brawl on the pitch (no change there, then?).
The result is a joyous escapade that I hope will turn out to be one of the box-office hits of the year – totally unexpected but with a brilliant screenplay that will keep a smile stitched to your face when you’re not laughing out loud.
Clooney manages to insert two further storylines into the script. To save his team from bankruptcy, Dodge buys Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski), who is not only the country’s top football ace but also a war hero who single-handedly forced an entire German platoon to surrender in the trenches.
Or did he? Unknown to anyone, Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), a hotshot reporter on the Chicago Tribune, has her suspicions – and sets out to prove he’s a fake. This of course will be fatal to the team, and Dodge uses every trick in the book to thwart her.
We’re into a battle of the sexes reminiscent of those marvellous Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant comedies, with sparkling dialogue laced with vitriol and the kind of ending that sends us home feeling the world isn’t such a bad place after all.
Clooney comes into his own at last, in a role tailormade for him, proving himself a subtle, light comedy actor as well as a star.
He is perfect for the role, and on both sides of the camera he delivers on all counts. |
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