Meanwhile, ambitious gal reporter Lexie Littleton (Zelleweger) is following their team in the hopes of bringing down the reputation of the new star player. She thinks the football champ is too good to be true. Aiming to prove her case, the spitfire goes to the big leagues and digs deeper into Carter's background. Both Connelly and Rutherford take a shine to Lexie, but she's got her own agenda: to expose Carter's battlefield heroics as a outright sham.

Taken from a long-in-development script by Sports Illustrated writers Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, "Leatherheads'' has its lapses in logic. Most of the period detail shines, but Randy Newman’s score often steals the thunder of the old-timey cuteness.

The Roaring ‘20s costumes, sets and music all look great, while cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel gives the South Carolina location a well-lit footage a wash of amber to warm the pic. But Leatherheads never quite feels right. No contemporary film can match the greatness of Frank Capra classics - many aspects are stolen from The Front Page and It Happened One Night. Nonetheless, when the main cast is together on screen, you can feel the magic.