Three years removed from the critically acclaimed Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney is back in the dual role of actor/director with Leatherheads. Scripted by Sports Illustrated mainstay Rick Reilly, Leatherheads is a period comedy that follows the early struggles of professional football through its central character, Jimmy “Dodge” Connelly (Clooney).

The year is 1925 and Dodge’s team, the Duluth Bulldogs, is in jeopardy of going under and he must think quickly to save his fading football career. He finds hope in Princeton’s star football player and decorated war hero Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (The Office’s John Krasinski). Armed with charm, Dodge attempts to lure Carter away from Princeton and bring the megastar to Duluth. However, things get complicated when reporter Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) shows up, questioning Carter’s war record.

As if the preceding synopsis could possibly make this seem like a good movie, let it be known that it is much worse than the outline suggests. In Leatherheads we get an exercise in what doesn’t work as the pathetic script and the amateurish acting cross swords to see who deserves this year’s Razzie. Script issues aside, which are innumerable, we soon realize that this acting ensemble is simply not funny. We will give Krasinski a pass due to feature film inexperience, but Clooney and Zellweger make fools of themselves as they exchange “quick” retorts that repeatedly fall flat. Clooney makes his success in O Brother Where Art Thou? seem like a distant memory and we pray that the Coens can once again put the mega star on track in their upcoming dark comedy, Burn After Reading.

Leatherheads has an unfortunate preoccupation with all the clichés that represent the era, leaving no speakeasy unturned. Behind Randy Newman’s irritatingly exhaustive ragtime soundtrack, the film sadly believes that it is clever satire of the 1920s. However, to the audience’s dismay, the satire has left out one key ingredient: wit. Maybe there is a generation gap here and actually all the jokes during the ’20s were not funny and embarrassing. If this is the case, we should at least consider Leatherheads an authentic piece of garbage.

Adam Neal is the founder of www.featurefilmreview.com. E-mail comments to him at adam(@)featurefilmreview.com.