The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

Leatherheads

April 6th, 2008

Y’all know how much affection I feel for John Krasinski, but even his presence couldn’t completely override my doubts about seeing Leatherheads after a horde of mediocre and less-than-mediocre reviews appeared. Fortunately, Dormouse prevailed and convinced me to go see it with her; I found it much more enjoyable than expected. Though far from perfect, Leatherheads is an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours—much more entertaining than watching an actual football game.

Part of Leatherheads’s argument, to the extent that it has one, is that football was much more entertaining before it had all these pesky rules. In these golden days, circa 1925, pro football is practically ignored—which, the movie suggests, might mean that it’s more fun, if harder to earn a living at. Wily, scrappy, aging pro player Dodge Connelly (George Clooney) and his fellow Duluth Bulldogs may have to share their field with a cow, but they love their game. Until the team goes bankrupt, that is.

In contrast, 1920s college football is beginning to draw quite a following, especially with the added draw of former war heroes like Carther “The Bullet” Rutherford (Krasinski), who singlehandedly forced a German platoon to surrender. Or did he?

Carter Rutherford’s all-American golden boy smells a little too clean to the editor of the Chicago Tribune, who sends “lady reporter” Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger, a.k.a. Squinchy McZellweggie) to dig up some dirt. Littleton’s character has been seen before in both Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—the strong, yet secretly lonely journalist, usually played by Jean Arthur, who ends up falling for the naïve goodness of Jimmy Stewart (or Gary Cooper) and feels reluctant to expose him to the cruel world.

Clooney is clearly borrowing from/paying tribute to Frank Capra comedies, as well as other golden oldies. There’s a scene on a train that I could have sworn came straight out of It Happened One Night. Critics have been slamming Clooney for copying the formulas of classic Hollywood comedies without maintaining their apparent ease—or for combining too many elements that don’t fit together. There are some moments that are a stretch—a chase scene in which Dodge and Lexie rather inexplicably don police uniforms—and some loose ends left unwrapped, but it’s still more fun than any recent romantic comedy I can think of—except for Enchanted, that is. (And since I don’t generally like romantic comedies unless they’re in black-and-white, I’m hardly an unbiased source.)

Speaking of Enchanted, it might be fair to compare Leatherheads to what Enchanted would have been if it had been made by someone other than Disney. What I mean is that when you’re riffing off your own artistic heritage, you’re free to invest it with a little self-conscious mockery along with the tribute-paying. When there’s less of a direct connection between you and your predecessors, the tone has to be different. While clearly evoking Jimmy Stewart, John Krasinski tones down Stewart’s aw-shucks routine enough to make it palatable to this irony-steeped generation.

Leatherheads will probably never achieve the iconic status of It Happened One Night or Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. There’s one area, however, in which it improves on its inspiration: the smart lady reporter gets an equally intelligent guy, rather than being “tamed” by the innocent doofus. There are still definitely some ways you can surpass the oldies.

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