Hardy Vision: Through all kinds of leather we all stick together

I have two great passions -- professional football and leather headwear. Imagine my delight when I saw George Clooney has combined these two mighty institutions into a major motion picture.

G-Cloo is director and star of Leatherheads, coming to a theater near Applebee's on April 4. It's a screwball romantic comedy set in the dawning days of pro football. You see, in the 1920s, the players wore leather helmets on their heads. Hence the term, "Leatherheads." (I can only assume production is in full swing for the "porn movie based on a real movie" titled Leatherasses.)

One of the screenplay credits goes to famed sports columnist Rick Reilly. While this probably means elements of the story will be cheeky and informative, I really don't think it's a good idea for sports columnists to start seeing their movie ideas turn into reality. Otherwise, my treatment for Rudy II: The Wrath of Weis could be TriStar's summer tent pole project for 2011.

But whatever the fortunes of Leatherheads, please do not confuse the name with horror movie psycho killer "Leatherface" of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame. So far as the six Texas Chainsaw movies made to date indicate, Leatherface has never played organized football. Although in the next franchise reboot, it's rumored Leatherface will be a Houston Texans assistant groundskeeper.

(Note to self: Start compiling an "All-Monsters Football Team" that SPiN can publish at Halloween. Leatherface can be a weak-side linebacker.)

For me to review Clooney's Leatherheads would require securing a credential for an advance screening. That's a lot of work just to see Clooney swap witticisms and kissisisms with Renee Zellweger.

Then a connection hit me like a thunderclap louder than the revving of a McCulloch 10-10S that had been left out in the rain after a week of heavy logging. One of Ms. Zellweger's first starring movie roles was in the 1994's The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Yes, before she scored her breakthrough role alongside Tom Cruise in the sports agent fable Jerry Maguire, Zellweger had to avoid becoming chainsaw meat on prom night after she and her friends took a wrong turn in the woods.

Even more incomprehensible: Her co-star was Matthew McConaughey. And I don't mean they have "pop on the screen and get whacked" cameos, like Kevin Bacon in the first Friday the 13th movie or Helen Mirren in the second Saw."

Renee and Matt are the two leads in the movie. She's the heroine. He's the lead villain of Leatherface's freak show family and kills more people than anyone else in the picture. If you haven't seen the movie, you should be warned that at one point McConaughey tries to bite the nose off a girl who was one of Zellweger's prom companions. If you have seen the movie you're probably saying right now, "Greg, don't forget to mention how McConaughey's character has a bionic knee brace that can be manipulated by an array of TV remote controls."

So I gave up on trying to sneak into a sneak preview of Leatherheads and proceeded to scour a ramshackle mom-and-pop video store in my neighborhood for a VHS copy of the Zellweger-McConaughey hack job. Which, by the way, was retitled as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.

(And whenever I saw The Next Generation on the box cover, I kept thinking Picard and Data were going to get chased into the basement just so they can plead "Computer! Freeze program!" before Leatherface set his chainsaw to "puree.")

After watching TCM:TNG, one can say, "I can see in hindsight how Renee Zellweger could become an Oscar-winner. If she can slog through this, she's got room for growth as an actress."

But the reason this movie holds must-see status is because Matthew McConaughey exactly plays the Matthew McConaughey we know today. He is dead set in his dopey accent, his cocky, creepy bravado, his bug-eyed idiocy.

How did he evolve to become an A-list heartthrob? Why hasn't he starred in 20 of these straight-to-DVD horror exploitation flicks? Does no one else want to see him typecast as the stoner, Texas-flavored Cryptkeeper of his generation?

This is the ultimate Matthew McConaughey movie in my book. I loved every minute of seeing him on screen because it played exactly into my rock-bottom expectations of him as an actor. I almost cried at the end when he was sliced up by the propeller of a crop duster that had swooped down to off him North by Northwest-style. (Where did that crop duster come from? I'm the wrong guy to ask.)

The movie is stupid, but never boring. Besides, the most mind-boggling idiotic aspect of the movie isn't even McConaughey's fault. Are you ready for this?

Despite the fact that this is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre IV ... not one person is killed by a chainsaw.

No one so much as loses a limb, or even gets grazed by a blade. Were the filmmakers really so stupid that by the end of the filmmaking process no one had picked up on the fact that this movie should have been retitled The Texas Chainsaw Incident? Or was this a conscious attempt to appease the anti-chainsaw maniac defamation lobby?

Oh, don't get me wrong -- Leatherface does get to tote a chainsaw. The best sequence in the movie is where he chases Zellweger from the woods back into his house, up the stairs, onto the roof, then Renee dodges an avalanche of chimney bricks, jumps off the roof to slide down a telephone wire, which Leatherface cuts, making her crash into the greenhouse. That was worth the $1.50 rental.

I tell you, Renee might have missed her action movie calling. Maybe it's still not too late to switch from Bridget Jones British to Lara Croft British.

It's a shame McConaughey didn't join Clooney for Leatherheads. Then again, Matt already ruined two sports movies: he was in over his head next to Al Pacino in the gambling cautionary tale Two for the Money, and he dragged down the otherwise highly inspirational tale of renewal in "We Are Marshall."

Man, if only Clooney had a motion picture franchise where he could hand-pick a dozen or so of the hottest A-list actors and they could wink into the camera about how cool they are. Oh wait, there's been three Danny Ocean movies, and McConaughey still hasn't made it to the cool kids' table. I wonder how that happened.

Well, I hope all this hasn't turned you off to Leatherheads. Maybe take some time to mark next week's calendar as Leather Pride Week. Wait, I just did a Google search on that phrase. Leather Pride Week is something completely different, and has nothing to do with a George Clooney movie.

And don't let me make you think Leatherheads is any better or worse than a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. At least Leatherface has proven that he can carry a franchise. How many Batman movies did Clooney star in again? Or maybe Clooney will ask to play Leatherface in an upcoming project. If he does, it's a sure bet that the costume will have nipples on it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go order my DVD copy of Leatherasses.