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DVD Bad News Bears (Widescreen Special Collector's Edition)
In a fitting follow-up to Bad Santa and Friday Night Lights, Billy Bob Thornton makes the most of the remake trend in Bad News Bears. He's just the right guy to inherit Walter Matthau's role from the original 1976 version about a lousy Little League team baseball team coached by a curmudgeonly drunk, and the original team of misfits has been updated (but not upgraded) to an ethnic mix that includes an Indian math whiz, a pair of Latino twins, and a paraplegic kid who doesn't play until the final championship game. It's a little sad to see a talented director like Richard Linklater doing an unnecessary remake, but his experience on School of Rock made him the obvious choice to mine comedy gold from the collision of Thornton and a batch of unruly, prepubescent kids (including Sammi Kraft, an all-star Little Leaguer in the role originated by Tatum O'Neal). With Marcia Gay Harden and Greg Kinnear in supporting roles, this isn't family fare (the potty-mouthed kids deservedly earned a PG-13 rating), but Thornton's easygoing presence makes it worthwhile for anyone who's not too attached to the original version. --Jeff Shannon
Review(s): DVD Bad News Bears (Widescreen Special Collector's Edition)
Wish my ball coach was a drunk............
I was dissapointed in this film, I thought it was going to be about bears in the wilderness having bad luck. You know, a bear falling off a cliff, getting his brains blown out by a hunter, bears burning in forest fires, being raped by elk. This film is about baseball. Who cares, the original is better, and Bad Santa as the coach? Christmas is ruined for me now. Love the language of the little kids, just wish they didn't cut the scene of Tanner pooping on second base.
Scatological remake of a not-so-pure movie in the first place.
This lackluster remake of the much-loved 1976 Walter Matthau movie doesn't bring much new to the table. Retired minor league pitcher Morris Buttermaker (Billy Bob Thornton) played 2/3 of an inning in the majors, at a time "long ago and far away," and describes his current situation like so: "I make a living killing rats so I can pay rent on a trailer." Sarcastic, frustrated, and frequently drunk, he agrees to coach a Little League team that includes players of various abilities (one is in a wheelchair, another is overweight, another short and puny, etc.) and backgrounds ("I got the damn League of Nations here," he grumps).
Nostalgic for a time when little kids uttering obscenities was considered hilarious mischief, BAD NEWS BEARS is surprisingly unimaginative, given director Richard Linklater's previous displays of ingenuity, including School of Rock, Waking Life, and of course, Slacker. (Sadly, the film's standout aspect is editing: scene to scene, it's spectacularly incoherent.) Basic plot: mean coach turns nice, and team comes to believe in itself.
As Buttermaker squares off against the rival team's coach, a bully named Bullock (Greg Kinnear), he also comes to respect his own team, as much for their oddities as for their spirit. He also sleeps with one player's mom (Marcia Gay Harden), makes the kids work for him exterminating rats and bugs, trots out a midget for no apparent reason (except, it seems, the Bad Santa writers, who scripted this film, like this particular "joke").
Though Buttermaker advises his players to lie to their parents when the team is losing ("Lie your ass off, tell 'em what they wanna hear"), everyone's happy when the team begins winning, this after Buttermaker recruits a great pitcher, his ex's daughter, Amanda (Sammi Kane Kraft, a real life Little League pitcher) and a great hitter, long-haired, just-out-of-juvie skater boi Kelly (Jeffrey Davies), who has a crush on Amanda. Kraft (who is quite good) and Thornton develop something like a charming rhythm, but for the most part, the film feels sloppy, riding on the lingering appeal of the original.
Families who enjoy this movie might seek out the 1976 original Bad News Bears (though its sans-Matthau sequels are less worthy), School of Rock (Jack Black coaches misfit musicians), Friday Night Lights (Thornton coaches high school football), Hard Ball (Keanu Reeve coaches urban Little League), and the annoying Kicking & Screaming (Will Ferrell coaches soccer). Older viewers might like The Upside of Anger, where Kevin Costner plays a similarly sulky but less annoying ex-ball player.
It was all right
At first I was turned off by the crude humor in the movie, but in the end it was an ok movie. Some of the jokes are hit and miss, as is the acting. It's hard to know what to expect with this kind of movie, but the idealistic ending was cute enough to forget all the bad parts.
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