Towards the end of “Leatherheads,” Jimmy (George Clooney) has a plan to get Carter (John Krasinski) to admit the truth of his wartime deeds. Carter has ridden a wave of war hero and football star popularity to the pros, where he has invigorated the startup league.
Jimmy borrows a military truck and some uniforms, dresses up his teammates, and parks the truck outside the football commissioner’s office. Upon looking out the window, Carter has a pang of conscience and recants his story. On the way out, he sees who is actually in uniform. They share a meaningful glance.
This is a pretty obvious set of circumstances for a screwball movie. The audience should know some kind of setup is in the works from Jimmy. We may even guess that the truck has football players instead of soldiers. But “Leatherheads” seems to go out of its way to not explain what’s going on. The players have been so poorly sketched out during the rest of the movie that simply seeing them in a group is not enough. In an earlier scene, Jimmy runs into an old war buddy and asks if he can borrow something. Is it just the truck? The whole platoon? Just their uniforms? Only in the next scene is it explained what actually happened.
In other words, a not particularly funny, clever, or interesting gag is stretched over three distinct scenes. The climactic football game ends with the same kind of poorly-explained trick.
Like another recent George Clooney vehicle, Steven Soderbergh’s “The Good German,” “Leatherheads” focuses on the background, to the detriment of the rest of the movie. The 1920’s style is lush and inventive—the oversize billboards and painted murals throughout come to mind. Clooney, Zellweger, and Krasinski all comport themselves well enough, but they are ciphers against this onslaught.
Jimmy borrows a military truck and some uniforms, dresses up his teammates, and parks the truck outside the football commissioner’s office. Upon looking out the window, Carter has a pang of conscience and recants his story. On the way out, he sees who is actually in uniform. They share a meaningful glance.
This is a pretty obvious set of circumstances for a screwball movie. The audience should know some kind of setup is in the works from Jimmy. We may even guess that the truck has football players instead of soldiers. But “Leatherheads” seems to go out of its way to not explain what’s going on. The players have been so poorly sketched out during the rest of the movie that simply seeing them in a group is not enough. In an earlier scene, Jimmy runs into an old war buddy and asks if he can borrow something. Is it just the truck? The whole platoon? Just their uniforms? Only in the next scene is it explained what actually happened.
In other words, a not particularly funny, clever, or interesting gag is stretched over three distinct scenes. The climactic football game ends with the same kind of poorly-explained trick.
Like another recent George Clooney vehicle, Steven Soderbergh’s “The Good German,” “Leatherheads” focuses on the background, to the detriment of the rest of the movie. The 1920’s style is lush and inventive—the oversize billboards and painted murals throughout come to mind. Clooney, Zellweger, and Krasinski all comport themselves well enough, but they are ciphers against this onslaught.
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