George Clooney’s third film as a director, Leatherheads, is a fan letter to the rapid-fire, quick-witted screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. Movies by directors such as Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder have clearly influenced Clooney’s decisions and performances during his acting career so it’s perhaps not surprising that this is the first of his self-directed projects in which he has also awarded himself the lead.

Dodge Connolly, a professional American football player at a time when the game was little more than a loosely organised brawl, is the kind of role that Clooney can do with his eyes closed – part Cary Grant, part goofball.

In the mid1920s, professional football is starved of investment and talent. It’s a blue-collar poor relation of the celebrated college football circuit, where stars burn bright for three years, then settle down to careers as accountants or lawyers. Which makes Connolly, the captain and coach of the failing Duluth Bulldogs, an optimistic pioneer at best and a beaten-up hard-luck story at worst. But despite repeated bumps on the head, Connolly is a man of vision. He realises that if he can recruit college football’s latest golden boy, the war hero Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (John Krasinski), he can not only save the Bulldogs, but also potentially reinvigorate professional football.

Connolly is not the only one interested in Rutherford. Reporter Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) has been sent by her newspaper to investigate suspected holes in his war-hero story. Although clearly inspired by Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, the character of Lexie is something of a misstep. She’s savage rather than sassy, her retorts contain more spite than wit. And, seeing as she’s the love interest for both men, that’s something of a problem.

There’s also another issue that rather detracts from the film – the fact that it’s about American football. This renders the film’s climax, a highly charged mud-bath of a game, incomprehensible and rather flat for audiences raised on the rather more satisfying British version of the sport. Still, it’s an affable, amusing picture that can boast one of cinema’s finest cameo performances from a cow.

PG, 113mins

Editor's choice

• U2 at Nou Camp Stadium, Barcelona
• The 50 Best Movie Villains
• The 15 golden rules of theatre etiquette