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Bad
News Bears Movie Review: The film is directed by the very straightforward, yet talented filmmaker Richard Linklater, who seems to have a terrific balance between his studio (School of Rock) and his indie projects (Before Sunset). The film is predictable and similar to the original, which finds a one time baseball player, now drunk womanizer named Morris Buttermaker (Thornton), who takes on a band of troublemaking and foul-mouthed little leaguers and turns them into a real team, sort of. With the help of a local lawyer (Marcia Gay Harden), Buttermaker who is a full time pest control worker becomes the coach of a team of misfit kids just for the paycheck. The kids are all foul-mouthed and each troubled by certain issues. One has angry problems, one is overweight, two can’t speak English, one is shy, and even one is handicapped. At first Buttermaker does not care at all about the kids, he brings them along to help him kill rats and passes out drunk on the pitching mound while throwing batting practice. The Bears team of course has a rival with the league’s best team, the Yankees. The Yankees stubborn coach,Roy Bullock (Greg Kinnear), also develops a hated relationship with Buttermaker. However as terrible as the Bears are, the more time they spend with one another, the more they solidify as a team. In need of additional help, Buttermaker recruits the flame-throwing daughter of an ex-flame to pitch for the team and a slugging juvenile to play shortstop. As with the original, the film is rude and at times dark, but it does turn into a soul-searching film for Buttermaker and each of the kids. As with the original Bad News Bears, this version exposes harsh behavior with children continuously cursing, which merits its PG-13 rating. After a while, the cursing just becomes repetitive, and nothing close to shocking. What does keep this film afloat is Billy Bob Thornton himself. It is as if his character of Morris Buttermaker knows a lot about baseball and is the semi-kinder brother of his character from Bad Santa. Thornton just has a wonderful comedic balance with his delivery of each of his lines, which are so demeaning that one can not help but laugh. His performance never seems artificial, even with his change of heart during the second half of the film. Director Richard Linklater worked from a script that was co-written by the writers of Bad Santa, so it seem they are in tune with Thornton’s tactics. The script is so predictable in nature that the film’s serves as nothing fresh, except for its performances. The characters each have their moments, but there are explanations that are touched on, but never fulfilled, such as the questioning of if Buttermaker is the pitcher Amanda’s father, or what was his real history with her mother. There is even a moment in the film where Amanda says that her mother is coming to a game, but nothing ever evolves from this one line. Linklater knows how to work with kids; he proved that with School of Rock. He gets the goods out of his kids in this film as well, but the script just lacks the bit of spark and originality that made School of Rock so entertaining. As with most of Linklater’s choices, the whole film is very simple, to where there is nothing terribly horrible with this film, but nothing extravagant either. The Bad News Bears is at times funny, but it is not a laugh fest. It is a shame
that The Bad News Bears is just another one of those summer
remakes that studios seem to keep revisiting. This film
has the spirit of the original, but not the spontaneity
or genuineness. It is really worth seeing just for Thornton’s
performance, which is like a PG-13 version of his outstanding
work in the dark comedy Bad Santa.
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