Now on DVD: Fatboys and Leatherheads compete in hit-or-miss comedies

Leatherheads
Review by Nathan Weinbender

It’s clear that George Clooney studied screwball comedies from the ‘30s and ‘40s before he plopped down into the director’s chair for “Leatherheads.” He more than likely wanted the audience to watch his film and remember the rat-a-tat dialogue of Preston Sturges, the polish of Frank Capra, the slapstick nonsense of the Marx brothers.

And he no doubt wanted us comparing him to square-jawed straight men like Gary Cooper, and Renée Zellweger to whip-smart blondes like Claudette Colbert in “It Happened One Night.” Unfortunately, “Leatherheads” doesn’t even come close to capturing the thousand-watt brilliance of those early talkies, and compared to the breezy sophistication of the films it desperately hopes to duplicate, it comes across as flat.

The movie begins in 1925, before pro football was legitimatized. Clooney plays Dodge Connelly, the star quarterback of the Duluth Bulldogs, who spends his nights in fisticuffs at speakeasies and likes the fact that his sport has very few rules. College football, on the other hand, is a booming industry, and the biggest name on the circuit is Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski from “The Office”), whom Dodge enlists as the Bulldogs’ newest player.

Enter Zellweger as no-nonsense newspaper reporter Lexie Littleton, who, on covering Rutherford’s rise to fame, starts to fall in love with the rough-and-tumble Dodge. This incenses the envious Rutherford, who goes ga-ga whenever Lexie steps into the room. The plot culminates lifelessly, as Lexie discovers that a war story Rutherford once told is likely fictional, but by that point we don’t much care.

Clooney and Zellweger spout off a lot of back-and-forth zingers, none of which are particularly funny or exceptionally well-written; Clooney can’t make his one-liners crackle the way Sturges could. (Take, for instance, this lousy exchange: Meeting in a bar, Zellweger tells Clooney, “I thought you had to be 21 to get into these places.” “I am 21,” he says, to which she quips, “I was talking about your I.Q.” Buhhh-zing.)

“Leatherheads” isn’t so much a period comedy as it is a document of A-list actors playing dress-up. Clooney’s attempts to reproduce the charms of films like “Sullivan’s Travels” and “His Girl Friday” fail because he approaches those movies as if they’re cute little artifacts that can be easily imitated. Not so—“Leatherheads” actually feels more old-fashioned than anything that Sturges or Capra ever did.

Grade: C

Directed by George Clooney. Written by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly. Starring George Clooney, Renée Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Root and Wayne Duvall. PG-13; 114m.

Run Fatboy Run
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Nothing particularly surprising or especially hilarious happens during the course of “Run Fatboy Run,” but it’s a harmless, charming movie nonetheless. It’s a routine story, predictable from beginning to end, yet it’s the presence of star and co-writer Simon Pegg (from “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”) that makes the film watchable.

Pegg plays a low-life department store security guard named Dennis, who, five years prior, left his pregnant fiancée Libby (Thandie Newton) at the altar. Now she’s engaged to a hotshot American businessman (Hank Azaria) who runs marathons for charity. Naturally, Dennis decides that he has to run a marathon as well, hoping his perseverance will pay off and Libby will come back to him.

You’ll be able to see exactly where the script is going at every moment, yet Pegg, with his genuine shaggy-dog appeal, keeps the movie’s basic conflict compelling: It’s a testament to his performance that we end up rooting for such a self-centered schlub. “Run Fatboy Run” is nothing to write home about, but here’s hoping that Simon Pegg gets some more work in the near future.

Grade: C+

Directed by David Schwimmer. Written by Michael Ian Black and Simon Pegg. Starring Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton, Hank Azaria, Dylan Moran and Harish Patel. PG-13; 100m.

Also available on DVD today is “Sex and the City.” I decided to skip that one—I wasn’t feeling particularly masochistic.