George Clooney, Reneé Zellweger and John Krasinski in Leatherheads
No want likes knocking George Clooney. After all, anyone who chooses to make high-minded fare like Good Night and Good Luck and Syriana when he could simply knock out another Danny Ocean heist sequel has got to be a decent chap, right?
It therefore gives me no pleasure to reveal that Leatherheads, Clooney's latest film behind the camera, and in which he also stars, has failed to inspire the critics, with many pointing the finger of blame firmly at gorgeous George's manly visage.
"It's good-looking, good-natured and sophisticated, but Leatherheads can't choose between football biopic or screwball romance," writes the BBC's Laura Bushell. The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt agrees: "One minute it's a romantic comedy. Then it switches to slapstick, then to screwball comedy before sliding into Frank Capra territory with a crusading female reporter and a phony hero before settling on a gridiron version of The Natural. It's all over the place but never feels comfortable in its own period clothes."
"On paper it looks like a gem - roaring 20s setting, verbal fireworks and a silly sport in its rude infancy," writes Empire's Simon Braund. "In practice, it's way off the pace, far too slow for its screwball pretensions and the kind of film that confuses pastiche with period detail."
Meanwhile, our own Peter Bradshaw points out that British viewers aren't really all that interested in the vagaries of the early American football scene. "Viewers are asked to be sentimentally nostalgic about something of which they have no knowledge," he writes.
Did you catch Leatherheads at the weekend? Is it one for our US cousins? Or did Clooney really drop the ball this time?
