Leatherheads (Blu-ray) (2008)

"...scores more points as a retro romantic comedy than a football saga.  Claudia Puig, USA Today
"Clooney and Zellweger play off each other perfectly, delivering their dialogue with the rhythm of a well-choreographed dance...  James Berardinelli's ReelViews
"Clooney and Zellweger are comic gold.  Kevin Steincross, FOX-TV
"Feisty and good-humored, and if it doesn't have deep characters, it is chock-full of personality.  Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun
"...most on its game when it's in the game, and in the zone of Clooney's no-bull affection for the faces of his actors.  Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"...a completely charming film that comes a few inches from being a great one.  Shawn Levy, Portland Oregonian
"A larky throwback to the breakneck screwballs of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges.  Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

Editor's Note From his casual charm to his cleft chin, George Clooney has frequently drawn comparisons to an actor of another age: Cary Grant. With his third directorial effort, the Oscar winner pays homage to the style of films that helped make Grant famous, such as BRINGING UP BABY and HIS GIRL FRIDAY. In 1925, when LEATHERHEADS takes place, professional football is a joke, especially when compared to its more respected college cousin. Teams across the country are folding, and player Dodge Connelly (Clooney) will do anything to keep his own team, the Duluth Bulldogs, from folding. The enterprising (read: scheming) Dodge steals Princeton star and war hero Carter Ruthford (John Krasinski, THE OFFICE) from his school, and soon the Bulldogs are winning, but it's the game of football that is the real champion as fans pack the stadiums. Meanwhile, reporter Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) begins investigating Rutherford's past, thanks to a tip from one of the star's old war buddies that he may not be all he seems. The pre-regulation football is dirty, but it's far cleaner than the action when Dodge and Carter vie for Lexie's affections. From the classic Universal logo that opens the film, Clooney firmly sets his film in the sepia-toned past. His lightning-fast dialogue is certainly reminiscent of the repartee between Grant and costars such as Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell. But as much as he owes to the screwball comedies of the 1930s and '40s, he also is mining the same vein that his frequent collaborators, the Coen Brothers, did in films such as THE HUDSUCKER PROXY and INTOLERABLE CRUELTY. Clooney's previous directorial efforts--CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND and GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK--were also both stylish films set in the past, but LEATHERHEADS is a more fun, mainstream work.

	John Krasinski
	Renée Zellweger
	George Clooney
	Jonathan Pryce
	Jeffrey Silver - Executive Producer
	Sydney Pollack - Executive Producer
	Randy Newman - Composer
	Newton Thomas Sigel - Director of Photography
	Bobby Newmyer - Executive Producer
	Barbara A. Hall - Executive Producer
	Rick Reilly - Screenwriter
	Grant Heslov - Producer
	Duncan Brantley - Screenwriter
	Casey Silver - Producer
	George Clooney - Director

USA Today
3 stars out of 4 -- "The football saga LEATHERHEADS, a nimble throwback to the screwball comedies of the 1930s, meets its goal." 04/06/2008

Los Angeles Times
"[A] light, charming, well-executed pastiche of a 1930s screwball comedy that alternates between witty repartee and broad slapstick." 04/04/2008

Rolling Stone
3 stars out of 4 -- "[A] vivid picture of pro football circa 1925....Clooney keeps the pace bouncy and charm at the ready as he, Zellweger and the appealing Krasinski put a sweet spin on BULL DURHAM's erotic triangle." 04/17/2008 p.66

Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t succeeds superbly at recreating the look, feel and flap of the roaring '20s." 06/01/2008 p.53

Ultimate DVD
"LEATHERHEADS is cleverly scripted, with well-drawn characters....Clooney strikes a perfect balance between acting and directing chores..." 05/01/2008 p.63

Sight and Sound
"The 1920s setting is enthusiastically mined for the picturesque trappings of speakeasies and train travel...but it's the embrace of caper and horseplay that bellows old school." 06/01/2008 p.66

Premiere
"[Clooney and Zellweger] both got the machine-gun-quick repartee thing down pat..." 04/03/2008

Reel.com 10 of 10
A football comedy disguised as a rom-com, Leatherheads is a snappy throwback fueled by the filmmaker's affection for a bygone era. Clooney's third directorial effort is his lightest film so far, which only means he isn't flogging the fear-mongering tactics of Sen. Joseph McCarthy (Good Night and Good Luck) or dissecting the deranged brain of a game show host who believes he's a CIA operative (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind)...Leatherheads keeps the beat of a vintage screwball comedy. It's aided immensely by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly's clever pitter-patter dialogue, production designer Jim Bissell's exquisite period detail, and composer Randy Newman's jangly ragtime score. (Look for his cameo as a piano player in a saloon.)...This is a lark, an homage to movies Clooney has gone on record as saying he adores. He's so in tune with these storied comedies, it might hurt his film's box-office receipts. Not that Clooney's directorial efforts ever break the bank: Confessions nabbed $16 million while Good Luck nearly doubled that with $31 million. But Leatherheads hangs so close to films produced during a forgotten age that audiences who don't recall how quick-witted screwball comedies used to be might not fully appreciate it or even care to. - Sean O'Connell

Salon.com 6 of 10
Whatever possessed George Clooney to make a comedy about professional football circa 1925, an era when professional football, at least as we know it now, barely existed? It's hard to imagine who, if anyone, could care about such a subject. And yet the sheer weirdness of the idea is what I liked best about "Leatherheads," Clooney's third picture as a director, particularly considering that in the current climate, making any movie whose objectives can't be summed up in two sentences is ill-advised..."Leatherheads" is only passably satisfying as a comedy. The picture is bumpy and unsure of itself; it would have more energy if Clooney and his screenwriters, Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, had streamlined it a bit. But you have to give "Leatherheads" this much: It's like no other comedy, or movie, out there these days. Clooney, one of our few old-style Hollywood movie stars himself, obviously loves old-fashioned moviemaking...Given the unapologetically retro appeal of its two stars, and the frisky chemistry between them, "Leatherheads" isn't the movie it might have been. But it does have a breezy, affable spirit, and its very casualness is something that's extremely rare in mainstream movies these days. In a Hollywood system clogged with filmmakers desperate to prove how talented and indispensable they are, Clooney makes it look as if he's not trying too hard. - Stephanie Zacharek