I barely remember seeing the original version of The Bad News Bears on television when I was a kid. I think I saw it more than once. I don’t remember how much I liked the original since it has been so long since I’ve seen it. I really wasn’t that interested when I heard that a new version of the movie was being made with Billy Bob Thorton. The opportunity to see it came up, so I did go see the new version of Bad News Bears. I did end up liking the movie more than I thought I would.
Morris Buttermaker, an exterminator, was going to coach a little league team. Buttermaker had briefly pitched in the major league. His team, the Bears, was made up of kids that hadn’t made it onto any of the other teams. One boy was even in a wheelchair. Liz Whitewood, the mother of one of the boys, filed a lawsuit so the boys could play. Buttermaker drank beer during practices and even passed out once. He didn’t teach the boys a thing before their first game. After that game, Buttermaker finally started to teach the boys how to play. He talked Amanda Whurlitzer, a very good pitcher, into joining the team and she helped convince Kelly Leak to play. The Bears started to improve and managed to win games. The coach of the champion team, Roy Bullock, was always making cracks about the Bears and Buttermaker. He became obsessed with trying to beat Roy’s team.
Bad News Bears is a remake of a movie that originally came out in 1976. I believe that the basic story remained the same, though I don’t remember too much from the original. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a player in a wheelchair on the team in that version. I don’t remember it having all the swearing that was in the remake, though I did see the original on television so it could have been edited. There was a lot of swearing throughout the movie, and not just from Buttermaker. I think some of the boys actually swore more than Buttermaker did. The language was probably the worst I have heard in a movie rated PG-13. The word that rhymes with luck wasn’t used. The writers of the remake also wrote another movie that Billy Both Thorton was in, Bad Santa, that was full of foul language. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if an unrated version of Bad News Bears is eventually released on DVD that has even more swearing.
Baseball played an important part in Bad News Bear. Buttermaker was shown doing his exterminating work once or twice. Most of the time he was shown doing something related to the team, like hunting up a sponsor or teaching the boys how to play. Some of the boys did get better once Buttermaker actually started to coach. The Bears had several games during their season and at least some of each game was shown. There was a big game late in the movie and most of that one was shown. More was shown of that game than any of the others. Buttermaker was originally only interested in getting his paycheck for coaching. As the season progressed, Buttermaker got more involved with the team and started to obsess about winning and beating Roy’s team. Roy was obsessed with winning right from the first time he was shown. The Bears started off as an underdog team, something that has been done many times in movies, both with adult and children’s teams. This type of movie does tend to be predictable. This is the third movie since May of this year to feature a children’s sports team. I did like this one more than Kicking & Screaming, the only other movie about a children’s team that I have seen this year.
Buttermaker spent time with a few different women over the course of the movie. Several very well endowed women turned up to watch the games. Early in the movie Buttermaker arrived at some sort of dinner for the coaches with a woman that was almost falling out of her shirt. When the Bears improved, Buttermaker started to take them to Hooters after the games and there were plenty of women in short shorts and tight shirts. Buttermaker did end up spending the night with someone. There wasn’t a sex scene in the movie though there wasn’t any doubt about what had happened between them. The woman was the one that instigated the encounter and it was very clear from what she said what she had in mind. There were a few sexual conversations and remarks throughout the movie. There was no nudity in the movie.
Buttermaker was drunk a lot and tended to hang out with much younger women. He wasn’t interested in coaching at first but he did change. He did go a bit too far in the other direction with his growing obsession to win. He seemed disappointed with how his life turned out at times. Billy Bob Thorton was fine in the role. I thought that Buttermaker was a lot like Thorton’s character Willie from Bad Santa. Both men drank a lot, liked younger women, and didn’t seem to know how to deal with kids. Buttermaker wasn’t a criminal and his language was slightly better. Roy Bullock tended to talk down to Buttermaker and was even insulting to his team whenever they met. Roy was obsessed with winning and a bit of a jerk. Greg Kinnear did a good job with the part. He played a different sort of character in Nurse Betty. He provided a voice for a character in the movie Robots. Liz was a single mother and lawyer that somehow managed to have time for all kind of activities. She acted proper most of the time. Marcia Gay Harden was fine in the part even though she didn’t have much to do. She played a much more serious part in Mystic River. None of the children were developed that much since the movie focused in on the games for the most part. The actors playing the kids did a good job with their roles. None of them really stood out.
CAST
Ridge Canipe - Toby Whitewood
Brandon Craggs - Mike Engelberg
Jeffrey Davies - Kelly Leak
Timmy Deters - Tanner Boyle
Troy Gentile - Matthew Hooper
Marcia Gay Harden - Liz Whitewood
Tyler Patrick Jones - Timothy Lupus
Greg Kinnear - Roy Bollock
Sammi Kane Kraft - Amanda Whurlitzer
Billy Bob Thorton - Morris Buttermaker
Richard Linklater - Director
Bad News Bears was more entertaining than I had thought it would be. It did have some problems, but overall I enjoyed the movie. It definitely earned the PG-13 rating with all of the swearing. I’m not really sure who the target audience for the movie really is. Adults may not be interested in seeing a movie about little league baseball and it really isn’t appropriate for children either. If the swearing and sexual references had been toned down it could have made a good family movie.
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