However, he's pretty much running on empty by the end of this self-conscious tribute to the 1930s and 40s screwball comedies of Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges.

He plays Dodge Connelly, a 1920s American football hero in the day when it was played for the good of the game with a side serving of fisticuffs and drunken brawling.

However, when his rag-tag team loses its sponsor and folds, the players are condemned to a hard life back in the mines and on the fields (imagine sending Dennis Wise back to a cardboard box factory).

But Dodge doesn't give up. Flexing his charm and persuasive patter, he convinces slippery agent CC Frazier (Jonathan Pryce) to snag rising college player Carter Rutherford (Krasinski, star of the US version of The Office) to head up the revived team.

The arrival of "The Bullet" captures the attention of spiky news reporter Lexie Littleton (Zellweger), who launches a probe into claims he single-handedly captured a platoon of Germans during The Great War.

And she also captures the flirtatious attentions of both Dodge (wily old charmer) and Carter (fresh-faced young hero brimming with false modesty), a situation that you just know is going to come to a head.

This is amiable enough, with Clooney effortlessly working his well-worn charms (you even glimpse him in his jim-jams) to produce a decent enough chemistry with Zellweger's ambitious news vixen.

Yet, it never catches fire. The humour is gentle rather than sharp (more mugging than Liverpool on a Saturday night) and there's an embarrassment of aged gags that wouldn't feel out of place in one of the racier episodes of Terry & June.

Woody Allen (before his muse was so rudely snatched away) used to excel at these retro rom-coms, but this is allowed to rattle on far too long.

Where Clooney scores is with the period setting; immaculately captured courtesy of sumptuous art deco hotels, veteran cars and any amount of unfeasibly large flat caps all conveying a world lights years away from jumbotrons and Astroturf.

By the final touchdown, there is enough to like and - let's face it - we'll always take time out for twinkly-eyed George.

Tim Evans