Leatherheads Fumbles

Critics seem to want to like Leatherheads, a screwball comedy about pro football's early days, directed by and starring George Clooney. The Roaring '20s costumes, sets and music are terrific, notes Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter. Clooney, as an aging player/team owner, and his leading lady, Renée Zellweger, as a spitfire newspaper reporter, "play off each other nicely," writes the Philadelphia Inquirer's Steven Rea.

And in the role of a college ball phenom/war hero, co-star John Krasinski (The Office) exudes the "aw-shucks decency of a young Jimmy Stewart," Rea adds. But "for all that looks and sounds right" with the movie, "Leatherheads never quite feels right," writes Scott Foundas of the Village Voice. "It aims for clickety-clack and ends up closer to clickety-clunk." (More movie review stories.)