Clooney hits the spot; dvd reviews LEATHERHEADS **** PG.

Byline: by rick fulton

LEATHERHEADS continues George Clooney's winning director-actor formula.

With American football in the doldrums, veteran player Dodge Connelly (George Clooney) seizes upon a foolproof scheme: to recruit star Princeton athlete Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) to his ailing team, the Duluth Bulldogs, as Carter is the golden boy of the college league.

Dodge blags his way into a meeting with Carter and his hard-nosed manager, CC Frazier (Jonathan Pryce), but is distracted by reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), who has been sent by her paper to write a piece on the boy wonder. But her real intention is to dig beneath the surface of Carter's glittering war record, and to expose the golden boy as a fraud.

Dodge falls hopelessly in love with the reporter, but grows jealous of the amount of time she spends with his new signing.

The truth about Carter's time in the war pulls the film in one ponderous direction, while Clooney and Zellweger take it somewhere else entirely.

DVD Extras: Deleted scenes. Also available to buy DVD pounds 15.99.

CAPTION(S):

HARD-HITTING: Leatherheads