I felt that the morphing between drama proper and pastiche worked amazingly well. Several scenes adjacent to proper scenes (most notably the bar brawl) consist entirely of cliches but all the same somehow manage to be completely charming.
As soon as I realised it was set in 1925 (I had no idea beforehand other than that the style of their faces on the poster was a bit strange), I knew that Clooney and especially Zellweger would be perfect for the era.
The final showdown is of course a bit of a yawn, but not compared to that in most sport films.
Didn't work. The drama was too heavy for the comedy to work, the pacing too slowly to be an effective pastiche. Look to the Coens' The Hudsucker Proxy and Intolerable Cruelty (with Clooney) to see this kind of thing done correctly.
Look to the Coens' The Hudsucker Proxy and Intolerable Cruelty (with Clooney) to see this kind of thing done correctly.
Sure, I've seen those and they're good, but I enjoyed this too. Somehow for me it had a feel different to any other film (in a good way). It's not going to be an all-time great, but the warmth suffused through it makes it impossible for me to dislike.
Leatherheads
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 20:39:59
