Before the Jessica Simpson Jinx, before there were any Mannings on the field, before the coin toss, the first down, or the first call, before Bowls became reason for celebration, and before the letters NFL came to mean anything at all, there lived a breed of men who played football because they loved it. And they were called Leatherheads.

During the era of the Leatherheads, the game of football was simple—get the ball to your end of the field as many times as you can. The rulebook was easy to follow—because there wasn't one. Playbooks weren't rocket science—because the players couldn't do rocket science if they tried. But in 1925, when the ragtag league of footballers began to collapse, a collegiate war hero is brought in to bring the league back to life, and a saucy journalist smells a scoop amid the huddle, the entire game changes. And that is where Leatherheads begins.

For Dodge Connelly (George Clooney), captain of the Duluth Bulldogs, football is his life (as it is for most of the members of his team). When asked what skills he has besides football, all Dodge can do is stare blankly at his interviewer. But let's just say, when he hears that crowds are lining up to see a certain young war hero play the game that has already collapsed around them, his talent for public relations and smooth talk flip into high gear.

To keep the game alive, he recruits young war hero Carter "The Bullet" Rutherford (John Krasinski) for the Bulldogs. Not only can he run faster than any other player on the field and pack stadiums tighter than a can of sardines, Carter also singlehandedly obtained the surrender of an entire platoon of German soldiers during WWI. And, well, as Dodge sees it, if Gem Razors and Adams Chewing Gum are counting on Carter's charm and talent to keep their companies alive, maybe, just maybe, he will be able to do the same for football.

But as all of us in this day and age of celebrity saturation know, the people we look up to aren't always all that. And after receiving a tip from one of Carter's fellow soldiers that Carter isn't exactly the golden boy he claims to be, Chicago Daily Tribune reporter Lexie Littleton (Renèe Zellweger) sets out to get the rest of the story.

Cue a movie about football, fans, celebrities, heroes, romance, and love that is unlike any I have watched before. With dialogue and scenarios that evoke the same feeling as Annie Get Your Gun's "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" or almost any of the songs from Damn Yankees, the entire movie is classic and entertaining in a way that unfolds like a real show from beginning to end. Its physical comedy and energetic scenes driven by the vibrant music of the era bring it into the realm of a Marx Brothers comedy show spread across the country's heartland and dropped onto a football field. And with chemistry flying between all three of its main players as well as with the game in between them all, it is a love story that I truly loved watching.

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