Bad News Bears

Bad News Bears wasn’t quite as funny as I was hoping it would be, but it still has its moments—mostly Billy Bob Thornton moments.

This movie is a remake of the original Bad News Bears starring Walter Matthau, and although I can hardly remember anything from the original, this version does retain the overall attitude of its predecessor. The indifferent, drunk, and inappropriate Morris Buttermaker (Billy Bob Thornton) coaches a little league team composed of kids who lack any sort of baseball talent. Buttermaker used to play professional baseball as a pitcher for a minor league team, but once made it to the majors for less than one inning. He lacked the ambition and drive to be successful however and now makes a meager living as an exterminator. The Bears start out the season as beyond hopeless, unable to perform the most rudimentary baseball procedures, such as fielding a ball, making a catch, or making a decent throw. Buttermaker at first regards the slaughter with a fatigued indifference and finally decides to forfeit the game before the first inning is completed. He starts teaching the kids the fundamentals of baseball, and recruits two new star players to the team: his daughter from a previous marriage who happens to be a pitching ace, and the stereotypical delinquent who must therefore be good at baseball. Mostly through the addition of these two players, the team begins to improve, and we are progressively led toward the final game against the defending champs.

What makes Bad News Bears funny is Billy Bob Thornton. This movie wasn’t really about a misfit baseball team led by a reluctant coach, who must all come together and learn valuable lessons about themselves in order to win in the end. It was instead almost entirely about the character of Buttermaker. He doesn’t really learn anything or grow as a person, which is nice for a change because it more accurately reflects the real world and gets rid of a sappy ending. The kids whom Buttermaker coaches are almost as cynical and detached as Buttermaker himself, so his behavior ends up being much less shocking and more comical. He flings endless inappropriate one-liners and comparisons, but the kids respond in kind, being equally depressed about their own existences as Buttermaker is. I suppose this is what makes the movie funny, as both the kids and Buttermaker realize that they are hopeless outcasts, and decide to regard the rest of the world with its constant competitiveness as being a complete waste of time.

Unfortunately, the movie does drag somewhat in parts, and with one-liners from Coach Buttermaker being the bulk of comedic material, I didn’t end up laughing quite as often as I thought I would. Sure, Buttermaker is a funny character, but he is never presented with a variety of different situations in which to be himself, so by the end of the movie it’s not as funny when Buttermaker is boozing it up on the baseball field—I saw that in the first 10 minutes and almost every minute thereafter as well. This movie is definitely not bad, and I recommend you watch it—but it’s not worth going to the theater for this one.