Screwball comedy has also been a genre based on fickle charms. That was true at the height of its popularity in the heyday of the 1940s and it remains true now with George Clooney's loving homage, Leatherheads. With a cast of charmers that includes Clooney himself, Renee Zellweger in top shape, and blooming film star John Krasinski, Leatherheads chugs along comfortably and warmly for its full run. It's also a refreshingly unironic throwback that doesn't tease at old-fashioned conventions, but instead settles into them nicely. Clooney is a well-informed helmer with a great sense of the formula. The only frustrating element of his work is the constant, time-passing complacency of the whole ordeal. It's mostly enjoyable but gets by primarily on the charisma of its stars and classically styled character banter. It's not a comedy of sharp, contemplative wit but of blunt carefully timed barbs that bounce between stars in perfect rhythm. We like them. We like their characters. But we fear not for their futures and we feel not for them as they dabble in melancholic woes. The narrative conflict exists as a stop gap between playful bickering and insincere sniping.Clooney stars as Dodge Connelly, a washed up pro football player determined to legitimize the league and keep his team together. To do this he recruits Carter Rutherford (Krasinski), a widely beloved college player and war hero. Hot on both their tails is the no nonsense Katharine Hepburn-type reporter, Lexi Littleton (Zellweger). She has intel about Rutherford that suggests his much discussed heroic act during the war might be fabricated and hopes to get to the bottom of the story and expose him as a fraud. Of course all three end up entangled in a complicated dance of romance and miscommunication.
The films charms don't reach far but it's very good in its small way. It doesn't come close to greatness but sometimes good is more than enough. In some ways, it can feel frustrating to see it sink so modestly into slightness. The bottom line, though, is that Clooney and Co. seem primed to make do with small pleasures and the results suit their ambitions just fine.
Grade: B
