More on Leatherheads

Go to our special Leatherheads page to find past coverage of filming in our area, trailers, photos and more!"

Seeing as George Clooney filmed his third directorial effort partially here in the Upstate, one might expect this review to be a bit biased.

Well, that’s probably true, but it doesn’t change the reality that his newest film, “Leatherheads,” starring Mr. Clooney, Renee Zellweger and John Krasinski, is actually quite good.

Let’s start with the understanding that you can’t go into this film looking for the George Clooney of “Syriana” or “The Good German.” And his direction is nothing like “Good Night and Good Luck.” Instead, this is a film you watch with a bag of popcorn, a date at your side and the intention to laugh consistently through the whole thing.

Mr. Clooney plays Jimmy “Dodge” Connelly, an aging professional football player in 1925 who is finding it difficult to attract a crowd to any of his games. As the other teams fold around him, Dodge and his Duluth Bulldogs are forced to quit as well, amid a growing apathy for pro football.

Enter Carter Rutherford (Mr. Krasinski), a war hero and college football star who can’t help but draw a crowd wherever he goes, especially on the football field. “The Bullet” Rutherford is convinced to join Connelly’s rag-tag group of players, in order to put pro football back on the map.

Thrown into the mix is Lexie Littleton (Ms. Zellweger). She’s a hard-knocks reporter looking to get the scoop on Rutherford and the real story behind his wartime heroics.

While the plot is out there, it really takes a back seat to the quick-wit dialogue and the football antics and hijinx on the field of play. Mr. Clooney and Ms. Zellweger play perfectly off one another in a modern-day Cary Grant/Katherine Hepburn kind of way (ironically set in the 1920s), and Mr. Krasinski adds the boyish charm he has become beloved for in his role as Jim in the NBC series, “The Office.”

Dodge and “The Bullet” compete not only for accolades on the gridiron, but for the affections of Lexie. And while the ending is a bit formulaic, getting there is most of the fun as we watch full-grown men playing a backyard game of football much the way we, ourselves, did once upon a time.

Mr. Clooney continues his directorial prowess and it’s obvious he has taken a good deal of inspiration from the classics of Howard Hawks, as well as his recent collaborations with the Coen Brothers. (For you Coen fans, one scene in particular had to have been done with those brothers in mind. You will see which one.)

Overall, “Leatherheads” is exactly the way it’s billed: a romantic, slapstick comedy that has far more going for it than only romance or only football. It’s fun, it’s well-written and it’s nice to see a throwback to the classics we all know and love.

And the football gets us pigskin fanatics over the hump until the NFL draft in mid-April.