Before I went into Leatherheads, I had no doubt I was going to love the movie. After all, I love George Clooney, I love screwball comedies, and I love the era of filmmaking that Clooney -- who, besides starring, also directs -- is paying homage to. Unfortunately, Leatherheads, a fictitious take on the nascent days of pro football, is trapped so deeply in the past that it fails to hold up in the context of modern cinema. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad I saw it, and who knows, maybe you will be too -- but don’t expect it to rock your world like so many of Clooney’s recent efforts. Compared to the high standards he’s set for himself by being so damn good at everything he does, Leatherheads can only be seen as a disappointment.

In his third directorial outing, following Oscar-nominated Good Night, and Good Luck, Clooney plays Dodge Connelly, captain of the Duluth Bulldogs, one of countless struggling “pro” football teams that, in 1925, couldn’t get any respect. When the Bulldogs go belly-up, Dodge strikes upon an idea; what if he recruits the brightest star from the much-more-successful realm of college football, Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski)? Overnight, he legitimizes his league and brings with it the one thing football, at least Dodge’s football, never needed -- rules.

Hot on Carter’s tail is Chicago reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), who’s determined to reveal Carter as a fraud. See, Carter might be a great football player, but he’s an even better publicity machine; he’s transformed a myth that grew around him during WWI into a full-blown media identity, and now he and his manager will stop at nothing to protect his secret. Of course, this scenario presents a love triangle, because Lexie, even before she meets the younger Carter, has the hots for his gosh-golly all-American face, while Dodge, a slick charmer, has his eyes set on Lexie despite her abrasive, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar personality. She’s clearly inspired in part by Rosalind Russell’s part in His Girl Friday, with plenty of Katharine Hepburn’s spoiled society girl in The Philadelphia Story tossed into the mix too. Clooney, who has always looked and occasionally acted like Cary Grant, channels his big-screen predecessor, right down to Grant’s comical mugging, while Krasinski ... well, it would be nice to say Krasinski was channeling a young Jimmy Stewart, but Krasinski is just playing Jim from The Office, which means he’s just playing himself. Am I alone in wishing he’d stretch a bit more and not rely so much on his inherent good-good charm? I’ve met him; he’s exactly who you see on TV, but that isn’t enough to endure in this business.

Clooney the director keeps himself and his cast spitting dialogue at breakneck speed, which, as I’ve said, places the movie firmly in the style of filmmaking that made comedies so great in the '30s and '40s; he even goes so far as to anchor his cinematographic technique in those decades by refusing to use Steadi-cams or excessive tracking shots. But, without any modern embellishments -- thematically, at least -- Leatherheads feels too much like something that, if it were black and white, you’d find on Turner Classic Movies. That’s great if you like those kinds of movies, which I do, a lot, but I’m still trying to catch up on the long list of genuine classics I haven’t seen yet. I don’t need filmmakers trying to add to that list from today.

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