The Bad News Bears

The first thing you notice about the new remake of The Bad News Bears is that it looks cheap. There are no establishing shots. We're told the film takes place in the San Fernando Valley, but you never get a glimpse of anywhere but the local baseball field. The central cast is limited to the Bears team, plus Billy Bob Thronton, Marcia Gay Harden and Greg Kinnear. And the entire affair feels rushed and incomplete.

I can't say I know why the film comes off this way, whether it's a result of director Richard Linklater being denied a reasonable budget, a sped-up timeline necessitated by someone's schedule or last-minute changes. But it throws the film off from the first moment, giving it an awkward, perfunctory feel. That never helps with a comedy.



But the bigger problem is the film's schizophrenic sense of humor. Bad News Bears is truly a movie without an audience. The 1970's original, rated PG at a time when the ratings board was far more lax, is fondly remembered as a family movie despite some rather offensive language and content. The Matthau character was a drunk, many of the children were racially insensitive, and there are many jokes made at the expense of the team's lone female player (the charming Tatum O'Neal).

The new film admirably tries for the same balance, but fails to capture either the light entertainment of family fare or the edgy satirical humor that made the original film stand out. Instead, you get an odd mix of abrasive, crass humor and milquetoast "feel-good" blather.

Admittedly, the movie has some funny moments. Star Billy Bob Thornton, as a washout ex-minor league hero drafted to coach the world's worst Little League team, squeezes the most possible out of the premise. Though this film never reaches the inspired, crude heights of Terry Zweigoff's Bad Santa, this kind of character is perfectly designed for Thornton's weary, sly redneck persona.

In one scene, he's shocked when a black child (Kenneth Harris) cites Mark McGuire as his favorite player.

"But, he's a white," Thornton blurts out in surprise. It's a very funny little moment.

And Bad News Bears definitely has a few. But the funny bits are far outnumbered by the scenes that simply don't work. Kinnear plays the same smarmy character we've seen time and again in these sorts of films, the overzealous sports dad who coaches Little League with an intensity generally reserved for Space Shuttle launches. In fact, we've already seen Will Ferrell and Robert Duvall riffing on this very same lame caricature in this summer's even less successful (but decidedly more odd) Kicking and Screaming.

And Harden, too, is demeaned by a small, unfunny role as a stressed-out, overprotective mom who is won over by Thornton's greasy dirtbag charm.

This whole subplot is just totally flat, and feels false from the first moment. It's a problem with much of the Bears screenplay - things tend to happen out of plot convenience rather than the natural movement of a story. At first, Thornton is a miserable drunk, but he's able to magically sober up just when the team needs to start winning. Once he's grown as a father and coach, he must suddenly abandon his newfound love of children, so that he can later rediscover it during the big game.

I'm not saying a genre film like Bad News Bears should free itself from these cliches. Let's face it - these cliches are what make great sports movies great. Even the best movies in this genre - like the original Bad News Bears or Major League or Bull Durham or Hoosiers - follow the formula. It's how you integrate that formula into a setting and a story that matters.

I'm reminded of another film with a great Billy Bob Thornton performance, last year's wholly underrated Friday Night Lights. That movie was based on a real story about a football team's triumph over setbacks and conflict, and it followed every sports movie formula there is, but it felt unique, original and immensely satisfying.

Bad News Bears instead feels rote and somewhat tiresome. This is not the worst film from director Richard Linklater - that would be his atrocious Western The Newton Boys. But it's still pretty disappointing, a major step down from his last big studio comedy, the charming School of Rock.