Notice in the above picture that George seems drunk, John seems constipated and Renee seems airbrushed. These are all true and are the bases (basises?) of their respective characters in the movie. Which is unfortunate.Let's start with Johnny Boy. While on The Office he is cute, warm and quite funny (or at least in the first three seasons of the show), in this he is, well, constipated. I do not know whether he was just intimidated to be in a movie with George, but he had little to no personality, and what he did have could be attributed to either an impersonation of himself as Jim or halfway decent writing. Either he needs to humble himself with acting classes or he just needs a decent part to actually showcase his range rather than his looks.
George plays a drunker, more aggressive version of himself in the film, or at least from what I've heard of him. His chemistry with Z is minimal, he makes funny faces, and while he gets socked in the jaw plenty he rarely has any bruising. Kind of like watching a UFC fighter get hit in slow motion- It's painful and yet slightly sadistically funny to watch and you know he will not be having children for a long, long time. It seems that Leatherheads was a vanity project for him- clearly he likes football, himself and has had a relationship of some sort with Renee in the past, so if you mix the three together and add a rising star, the outcome has to be good, right?
As Dwight would say, False. All I have to say about Renee, because I have had a bias against her ever since forever and probably could not judge her fairly in any circumstance, is that 1. She should fire her makeup artist from the film because she looked absolutely terrible and 2. Please stop being annoying and cutesy. I know that the movie was supposed to be a bit of a romantic farce, but I can only roll my eyes so many times before they are permanently stuck in my skull, and let's just say that I am having imminent surgery to fix this problem.
On top of these acting challenges, the movie has to overcome 3+ montages (and no movie has had that many, ever. I looked it up) a running time just shy of two hours (for a movie about gentlemen in leather hats) and is severely lacking a... hmmm.... it rhymes with yacht? Oh, right, plot. You know, the thing that shapes the entire movie and is the whole reason for filming? I guess it's not that important. For me, movies lacking a plot and containing corniness, cheesiness and Renee Zellweger are doomed for failure, but that's just my humble opinion. And I'm right.
Image via http://movieboxx.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/leatherheads_header.jpg.
