Leatherheads (2008)

Striving to replicate the mad-cap goofiness of old Hollywood comedy, George Clooney’s third time behind the camera comes up short in a number of areas. Despite a talented cast (including himself), witty dialogue and period-appropriate set pieces, Leatherheads isn’t likely to usher in a new era of old time fun at the cinema.

Maybe it’s the time period the film is set in. Very few people are still around to remember the 1920s. On the other hand, maybe it’s the old-school comedy style. Very few people (and almost no one in the current generation) care for the comedic stylings of the 1930s anymore. Then again, maybe it’s the attempt to bring together the genres of comedy, sports and romance (a tricky trifecta to perfect). Whatever it is, something went wrong with the execution of this film.

George Clooney stars as Jimmy ‘Dodge’ Connelly, a business-minded professional football player whose team is going South. Very few people care about so-called ‘professional’ football because it’s little more than a bunch of men clinging to their college game glory days (if they ever had any, that is). Rather than give up on his dreams of glory and fame, Dodge draws up a scheme to lure college star and World War I hero Carter Rutherford, animatedly played by John Krasinski, to his team.

Rutherford balks at the notion because there is no money in professional football and he’s getting dozens of job offers a day as his college career winds down. Dodge sweet-talks him into joining by promising that people will care when they find out he’s playing and the stands will be filled on a weekly basis. Tension mounts on the field as Dodge attempts to bend the kid to his will when it comes to plays but Rutherford takes advantage of his star situation to take the reigns on play-calling. Tension also mounts off the field as a hot-to-trot reporter (Renée Zellweger) looking to deconstruct the myth that is Carter Rutherford gives the footballers something else to fight over.

There are a lot of interesting things going on in Leatherheads, so it’s a shame that the dots never get fully connected. First, there’s a cynical look at the way the media all but creates heroes for the sake of propaganda and morale-boosting. There could also be analysis of the intersection of greed, obsession and pride. Thirdly, there’s a generation gap tale to be told. Lastly, we’ve got a semi-historical glimpse at the early days of professional American football.

So what goes wrong with this film? While there is some genuinely funny writing, all too often the pacing is wrong. Sometimes there is just too much time between lines while other times the back-and-forth is too quick to believe or even digest. This may be a side-effect of most of the characters being relatively paper thin. Motives are made known early on and no extra depth is needed or given. This fact stands out because there are plenty of times where members of the cast don’t seem comfortable in their roles.

While there no question that chemistry exists between the actors, the disconnect between the players and their roles hampers the effectiveness of the characters and is probably the main reason for all the faltering humor. When the actors aren’t even sure if their characters think a line is funny, how can they possibly convey that to the audience? Clooney knows what he’s doing and gives a deft performance but, just like Dodge, he can be a little overbearing and the laugh lines he delivers feel forced.

John Krasinski has a bright career ahead of him but he would probably be wise to stop his agent from landing him the role of the young cute guy. While he was still in his late 20s at the time of filming, he doesn’t look like a young man anymore. Zellweger does her best with the material but it’s far from one of her more memorable roles.

In fact, this film, despite having a lot of positive things going for it, isn’t as memorable as it could have and should have been. Maybe Clooney needs another go at the madcap comedy genre to get it right. Maybe he should avoid the genre altogether. Whatever the case may be, Leatherheads, while appreciable at best, is not the romantic sports comedy anyone thought it would be.

RATING: 3 out of 5

RoboCop 3 (1993)

What a mess. As much as the RoboCop series descended into silliness from the first installment to the second, nothing could have prepared me for RoboCop 3. After neglecting to properly deal with RoboCop’s need to come to terms with his partial humanity for two films, we get a more family-friendly about face and watch as RoboCop joins a group of revolutionaries and fights back against “the Man.”

Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh. Allow me to set the scene for you- Omni Consumer Products is practically bankrupt but their goal of leveling Detroit and erecting their utopia, Delta City, in its place lives on through an equally sinister-minded Japanese corporation. OCP has begun the first phase of destroying the city by using military-style squadrons to forcibly evict entire city blocks at a time and leveling what once stood there. These efforts are met with hostility from the poor working class citizens getting forced out of their homes by the greedy corporation and a resistance movement springs up. Resorting to guerrilla tactics, these revolutionaries steal supplies, blow up the demolition equipment and kill enforcement squads wherever possible before slipping off into the shadows.

RoboCop and his partner witness the brutality of these enforcement squads while on duty. When the resistance group strikes, the enforcement squad opens up on anyone around. His directives telling him to protect the innocent, RoboCop attacks the enforcement squad. His partner is killed in the battle and RoboCop is badly damaged. RoboCop is taken in by the resistance group, fixed up and told about all the awful things OCP stands for.

To say that this film gives RoboCop heart is wrong. Yes, the titular character does the “right” thing and stands up for the oppressed citizens of Detroit, but he also doesn’t encourage the revolutionaries to give up their stealing and murderous ways like you would expect a justice-minded cyborg cop to. It slips into a kind of moral relativism that supports the revolutionaries' use of violence, but no one else’s.

On top of that, there still is nothing new introduced to the RoboCop series. Yes, there is the continuing saga of OCP’s quest for domination of Detroit, but that has always been a subplot in these films. RoboCop gave up on his family without much of a struggle, which killed his humanity for me. In RoboCop 3 our hero is nothing more than a walking, catch-phrase spouting demolition machine. Maybe it’s the effect of Franchise Syndrome, where the content, meaning and purpose of a film gets diluted for each sequel made, but part of me thinks that RoboCop was never meant to be a film franchise. It’s quite ironic that the original film was anti-capitalist and anti-establishment, yet the studio and filmmakers gave in to the sin of greed and took their cultural criticism and turned it into a cash cow.

The effects continue to be below par. You would think that a film that has so much advanced technology would have used state-of-the-art technologies to bring the special effects to life. The scenes with the Japanese company’s ninja robots were a silly excuse to incorporate martial arts action into an otherwise standard shoot-’em-up affair. The big finale is poorly executed and it’s a false climax at that. Despite the fact that the bad guys (evil corporations) lose in the end, to the victor go the spoils- a half demolished city with little to offer anybody in the way of safety, security or much of a future. That’s how I felt about the movie once all was said and done.

Truth be told, this movie is one big mess. Actor Peter Weller refused to reprise his role as RoboCop because of scheduling conflicts, the uncomfortable RoboCop suit and general malaise about the quality of the second film. Co-star Nancy Allen only agreed to return as RoboCop’s partner if her character could die in the first half of the film. With this little faith in the film from the cast, it’s no wonder that RoboCop 3 fell victim to camp and seemed to just be going through the motions.

RATING: 1.5 out of 5