best movie i've ever seen.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I heard somewhere that the target audience for this movie was 50-80 year olds and I'm not surprised as it is a complete throwback to a different era when people behaved very differently and slapstick movies like this were popular. And for one this reviewer really enjoyed it. I know I will be in the minority, but so what.Plot In A Paragraph: In 1925. Dodge Connolly (George Clooney) a charming football hero, is determined to guide his team to the top. But after the players lose their sponsor and the entire league faces certain collapse, Dodge convinces a college football star to join his team. Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) America's golden-boy war hero who single- handedly forced multiple German soldiers to surrender in WWI, Carter is good on the field too, reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger) believes he is too good to be true, and aims to prove it. However she finds herself drawn to both men and the two teammates start to become off-field rivals. Clooney seems really at home in movies set in a bygone era (see "O Brother Were Art Thou" and appears to be having a lot of fun here. Zellweger has a certain charm and Krasinski more than holds his own against two superior actors.I'm not sure about the hate aimed at this movie, I think the people who hate on it, clearly didn't understand it. And that is saying something as its not a complicated movie. I found it well directed, charming, funny and an enjoyable way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Leatherheads is billed as a comedy. Which makes the fact that the film is not particularly funny problematic. So who to blame? Well the star of the film is George Clooney. The film was directed by George Clooney. And the way George Clooney tells it George Clooney pretty much wrote the whole thing too. So whatever failings the film has are going to be laid at Clooney's feet. And there certainly are enough failings to make this, at best, a mediocre film. And that might be generous. Movie star Clooney does a reasonably good job. It's too bad writer/director Clooney didn't give movie star Clooney better material to work with.This is an attempt at screwball comedy centered around the world of professional football in the 1920s. In that time period pro football was pretty much a joke, college football was king. Clooney plays Dodge Connelly, aging star of the Duluth Bulldogs. The Bulldogs, like every other team of the era, are a ragtag bunch and the team is in danger of going out of business. So Dodge hatches a scheme and somehow convinces Carter "the Bullet" Rutherford to join the Bulldogs. Carter is the most successful and popular college football star of the day and a war hero to boot. Instantly the Bulldogs go from playing in front of crowds of a few dozen to playing before tens of thousands of fans. Maybe this pro football thing will catch on after all.Carter's joining the Bulldogs is not without complications. The biggest complication comes in the form of Chicago Tribune reporter Lexie Littleton who has been assigned to write a story which exposes as a fraud Carter's war heroism tale. But Carter falls for Lexie. And so does Dodge. And that's pretty much the movie. There's very little in the way of drama, which wouldn't be so bad if all of the attempts at humor didn't fall so flat. Few things are as frustrating as an unfunny comedy and that's what we've got here. It's an obvious homage to all those long-ago screwball films. The look, the style, the dialogue...it's obvious what Clooney's going for. But he can't pull it off. He's not helped by his two co-stars. Renée Zellweger seems to have misplaced her trademark spunk. Her Lexie is bland and rather boring. And, playing Carter, John Krasinski hardly makes any impression at all. We never end up really feeling much of anything for his character. He's just kind of there, taking up space. It's pretty much left to Clooney to infuse some life into the film, which he does, but it's not enough. The best moments are the verbal back and forth between Clooney and Zellweger. Clooney wins those battles hands down. So it appears that in his writing capacity he remembered to give himself some opportunities to shine but nobody else gets much of anything to work with. It all leads up, as all these sports movies do of course, to the big game at the end. But even that's pretty much a dud. It's a blah climax to a blah film.

Like a lot of people, I never bothered with this film when it came out in the cinemas because of the negative reviews that it got. Likewsie when it came to DVD it sat at the bottom end of my rental list waiting for me to want to watch it. Eventually I did and initially I thought that the reviews had been unfairly harsh because the film seemed like it was going to be a light and sparky sports period piece that captures the screwball comedies of years gone by. This is how it starts but unfortunately it is not how it continues. It is not like, at some point the film suddenly gets "bad" (it doesn't) but more that it doesn't quite have the sparkle or life that the trimmings all suggest that it will.In terms of capturing the period, it does a great job – or at least it does a great job of continuing the nostalgic idea of the period. It does this with a cool jazz soundtrack, good costumes and the suggestion of the snappy dialogue that the screwball movies are known for. I say suggestion because of the places where the film doesn't have the zing that it needed is in the script. It does have its moments though and it is quite fun at times but mostly it feels like it is just falling short of where it should be. It has a couple of things that don't help this either. Firstly it is too long, maybe not for the plot (it doesn't "drag" per se) but certainly for the light tone. Secondly, the romance aspect of the plot doesn't really work, which is partly down to the casting of Zellweger.Where Clooney fits the bill as a "too-cute by half" square-jawed matinée star, Zellweger cannot convincingly deliver her lines in a way that works. I think of Jennifer Jason Leigh in Hudsucker Proxy – she did an impression of an actress in a screwball comedy that was pretty good and looking at that shows up how ill-suited Zellweger is. I know people dislike her on principle but I am not one of them, I just thought she was pretty poor here. Krasinski is good in his role even if, to be frank, he didn't do anything that suggested he has more than the range of characterisation that he has already shown on The Office – and that should be of concern to his "people" since he will soon need to breakout of that show as it cannot run forever. The supporting cast has plenty of interesting and recognisable faces who do solid work.Leatherheads is not a terrible comedy as some have suggested and it should not be criticised for being inconsequential or light. Sadly though it is not frothy, sparky or fun enough to be the film that it was clearly intended to be. OK there are specific issues with aspects of the plot and some (well, one) bit of casting but generally this bigger picture problem is what limits it to be an "OK" film but no better than that.

This movie is absolutely awful. I suffered over an hour of this brain numbing rubbish thinking to myself it will get better. well guess what..it didn't!!! Even if you see this free of charge don't take it! It's like water torture. The acting is... well what acting is all I can say. I have given it one out of ten out of pure sympathy. Is it me or is George Clooney completely overrated, admittedly he has made one or two good movies but on a whole. I bought this movie as I like sports movies especially ones with a decent storyline, so you can imagine how disappointing it was to find out what a mistake I had made. I have seen the scathing reviews for Radio (Cuba Gooding Jr)but that looks like an academy winner compared to Leatherheads.