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#715 - Bad News Bears
Richard Linklater, 2005
A burnt-out alcoholic is made to coach a Little League baseball team full of misfits and delinquents.
I have not seen the original Bad News Bears with Walter Matthau, so most of my motivation for watching this was on the basis of it being directed by one of my favourite filmmakers, Richard Linklater. I certainly don't begrudge Linklater for doing paycheck movies from time to time, and School of Rock proved that he might be able to wring some half-decent material out of an otherwise off-putting proposition. Bad News Bears is very much similar to School of Rock in how it focuses on a grown-up ne'er-do-well reluctantly teaching a bunch of kids how to do something - in this case, it's Billy Bob Thornton's alcoholic misanthrope being roped into coaching a Little League team by his lawyer (Marcia Gay Harden) because her underachieving son happens to be on the team. While Thornton and the kids have a mutual lack of respect for one another, they gradually pull themselves together and start to become a force to be reckoned with out on the diamond even as many interpersonal conflicts threaten to boil over and ruin everything.
To be fair, Bad News Bears isn't quite as intolerable as the concept of a family-friendly remake might prove. For starters, it's certainly not that family-friendly as it features a team full of foul-mouthed kids not only fighting with one another but also talking back to their equally belligerent coach, who has no problem letting slip plenty of signs of his own debauchery. There are also signs that Thornton's perpetually-wasted screw-up has a heart underneath his acerbic exterior, especially when he tries to recruit his bratty erstwhile stepdaughter because of her preternatural skills with pitching. Throw in love-to-hate villains such as Greg Kinnear as the clean-cut yet horribly demanding and nepotistic coach of a rival team and you've almost got enough material to carry a film. However, the fun doesn't last long considering the fact that the film is focused on, y'know, baseball and that the amusement generated by raucous banter only lasts so long even in the hands of a dialogue-emphasising director like Linklater. As a result, Bad News Bears is ultimately a pretty unremarkable film that has just enough quality to stop being a contemptible mess but not enough to make it completely watchable. I'm not sure if Linklater has directed anything worse than this, but it wouldn't surprise me if this ended up being his greatest misstep as a director (paycheck be damned).
Richard Linklater, 2005
A burnt-out alcoholic is made to coach a Little League baseball team full of misfits and delinquents.
I have not seen the original Bad News Bears with Walter Matthau, so most of my motivation for watching this was on the basis of it being directed by one of my favourite filmmakers, Richard Linklater. I certainly don't begrudge Linklater for doing paycheck movies from time to time, and School of Rock proved that he might be able to wring some half-decent material out of an otherwise off-putting proposition. Bad News Bears is very much similar to School of Rock in how it focuses on a grown-up ne'er-do-well reluctantly teaching a bunch of kids how to do something - in this case, it's Billy Bob Thornton's alcoholic misanthrope being roped into coaching a Little League team by his lawyer (Marcia Gay Harden) because her underachieving son happens to be on the team. While Thornton and the kids have a mutual lack of respect for one another, they gradually pull themselves together and start to become a force to be reckoned with out on the diamond even as many interpersonal conflicts threaten to boil over and ruin everything.
To be fair, Bad News Bears isn't quite as intolerable as the concept of a family-friendly remake might prove. For starters, it's certainly not that family-friendly as it features a team full of foul-mouthed kids not only fighting with one another but also talking back to their equally belligerent coach, who has no problem letting slip plenty of signs of his own debauchery. There are also signs that Thornton's perpetually-wasted screw-up has a heart underneath his acerbic exterior, especially when he tries to recruit his bratty erstwhile stepdaughter because of her preternatural skills with pitching. Throw in love-to-hate villains such as Greg Kinnear as the clean-cut yet horribly demanding and nepotistic coach of a rival team and you've almost got enough material to carry a film. However, the fun doesn't last long considering the fact that the film is focused on, y'know, baseball and that the amusement generated by raucous banter only lasts so long even in the hands of a dialogue-emphasising director like Linklater. As a result, Bad News Bears is ultimately a pretty unremarkable film that has just enough quality to stop being a contemptible mess but not enough to make it completely watchable. I'm not sure if Linklater has directed anything worse than this, but it wouldn't surprise me if this ended up being his greatest misstep as a director (paycheck be damned).