Leatherheads

NEW YORK (CNS) -- The rough-and-tumble infancy of professional football provides the backdrop for "Leatherheads" (Universal), an amiable romantic comedy set in 1925. Despite some inconsistencies in the plot and some objectionable language, the film delivers as a diverting period piece.

Jimmy "Dodge" Connolly (George Clooney), the leading player of the ramshackle Duluth Bulldogs, has been throwing the pigskin around one cow pasture after another for 20 years. So when his financially unstable team follows many others into bankruptcy, he's not only out of work, but largely unemployable.

Hearing a radio broadcaster announce that college star and celebrated war hero Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) has attracted a crowd of 40,000 to Princeton University's football stadium, Dodge is inspired to offer him $5,000 a game to turn pro. Once CC Frazier (Jonathan Pryce), Carter's hardnosed manager, gets Dodge to double that amount, Carter leads the reassembled Bulldogs to a string of lopsided victories.

Tipped off by Mack Steiner (Max Casella), Carter's disgruntled former comrade, sassy Chicago reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger) begins trailing the team, hoping to debunk Carter's war record. Of course the two fall for each other, even as Lexie and Dodge express their mutual attraction in an exchange of often insulting wisecracks, in the vein of the Howard Hawks comedies of yore.

The three stars are effortlessly appealing. Clooney, who also directed, attempts to evoke the tangy wit of the screwball pairings of 1930s Hollywood, though co-writers Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly's script falls considerably short of the crackling repartee of its Golden Age forebears. And some of the plot turns are implausible. The ups and downs of the triangular relationship among the leads could use better motivation, and not all the actions seem plausible. Why, for instance, is Lexie so willing to consider blowing Carter's cover, especially when she comes to know him as a decent guy with a puppy-dog crush on her?

But, on the whole, Clooney has made an enjoyably innocent, old-fashioned love story, with an irresistible musical soundtrack, too.

The film contains some profanity, occasional crude and crass language, mild fistfighting, light sexual banter and innuendo. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults, though acceptable for older teens. Motion Picture Association of America rating, PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops