Bad News Bears (2005)

Bad News Bears (2005): Dir: Richard Linklater / Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden, Sammi Kane Kraft, Sonya Eddy: Advertised as a family film while lurking in the gutter of profanity and lewd behaviour unfit for its target audience. It is a sports comedy about retaliation and the team of misfits taken to championship level in baseball. Ever since the original Bad News Bears was released in 1976 audiences have been bombarded with shameless imitations and this one is one of the worst. It is a curious project for director Richard Linklater who seems able to work with any genre. He previously made Dazed and Confused as well as the overrated School of Rock. Billy Bob Thornton plays a former player now exterminator who agreed to coach the team. This is a xerox of his Bad Santa role in attitude but has little of the depth of that role. Thornton basically goes by the motions without challenge. Other roles are even worse off including Greg Kinnear as that ever familiar ignorant rival coach, and Marcia Gay Harden as that ever familiar mother of one of the players who will warm up to Thornton. The children are not quite on par with Tatum O'Neal from the original film. Teamwork and sportsmanship is not the item here. This film is promoting a vulgar version of what it was and for parents falling for its advertisements that is clearly bad news. Score: 2 / 10

Morris Buttermaker (Billy Bob Thornton) is a drunken lazy pest control worker. He's a former pitcher who actually got to the majors for 2/3 of an inning. Liz Whitewood (Marcia Gay Harden) hires him to coach the little league team. Roy Bullock (Greg Kinnear) is an opposing coach. The team is full of misfits and he recruits Amanda Whurlitzer (Sammi Kane Kraft) to play for him.This one pales in comparison to the original in almost every aspect. I even like Buttermaker's original job of pool cleaning better. Billy Bob Thornton is a great actor but he doesn't have quite as much apathy as Walter Matthau. His drunk acting isn't as good and his anger is more threatening. The kids just don't have the same charisma. And Sammi is no Tatum O'Neal even though she could really bring the heat. Director Richard Linklater is given not much more than a copy of the original to work with. And it toned down the edgier material. The original was a scathing indictment of kids sports leagues. This one is trying to be too cute about it.Every change seems to make this inferior. The kid in the wheelchair idea is stupid. They dropped the lawsuit idea. The dwarf joke doesn't work. The kids don't have the same chemistry together. Tanner Boyle and Timmy Lupus had such a great feel the first time around. Greg Kinnear is nowhere near vicious enough. They whimped out on his key moment with his son and what his son did in the original is so much better. Then there is the lack of an Oscar winner as the girl. They figured that they can't match the acting so they didn't even try. Of course, there's no way they would even consider using real beers. They could have done so much more than simply whimpify the original.

Billy Bob seems to have made a career out of playing these rather undesirable characters, and to be fair he does it very well. Few people can fall down in a drunken stupor as convincingly.I didn't see the original so can only rate this in it's own right. I'm not a fan of baseball either so have no idea if it is a true reflection on the game.There are a decent bunch of suitable misfits playing the Bears, and a suitably repulsive rival coach admirably played by Kinnear. The kids do their part well, and can't be blamed for the fact that there is very little originality in the story.There are some really funny moments from a decent script and direction, but by the end of the movie Billy Bob and his antics are looking tired. Still, worth watching for a few cheap laughs.

You know, sometimes a low expectation of something can really give you a pleasant surprise. This Richard Linklater remake of a great 1976 Walter Matthau movie isn't close to being brilliant or remotely fresh. In fact the term "if it ain't broke then why fix it" springs to mind, because an update wasn't needed at all. But to me, and a few other hardy {foolhardy} souls, this Bad News Bears is immensely funny and far from hindered by its predictability {Linklater and his team stick rigidly to the original film}. And while nobody, and I mean nobody, can do sarcasm and hang-dawg like Matthau, Billy Bob Thornton is no bad substitute to have coming off the bench. His delivery of some truly priceless lines alone make the film worth watching. That he is at ease with the array of child actors on show also eases the film thru its sticky {potentially sickly} moments.In a sports based genre that is full of like for like pictures, The Bad News Bears original is still one of its acerbic highlights. This remake does fall well short in the class department, but on a gags to laughs ratio? It nicely hits the ball out of the park.5.5/10 to many weary observers, 7.5/10 for me and the rest of the Morris Buttermilk appreciation society.