Common Sense Note
Parents need to be aware that the movie features kids cursing, behaving badly, fighting, and drinking non-alcoholic beer. Their poor role model is their coach, who drinks (to the point of passing out), smokes, swears, hangs out at a strip club, makes racist and sexist comments (as well as ignorant wisecracks about a boy in a wheelchair and another who is overweight), and teaches one of the kids to make martinis. As the coach works as an exterminator, the movie also features visual jokes about dead rats and insects. Though the coach learns to be a more tolerant and mature adult, he remains ornery, and has one-night sex with the mother of one of his players.
Families might talk about the film's treatment of the kids' differences in skills, sizes, attitudes, and backgrounds. While the coach is equally abusive to all the children, the film also makes some visual jokes based in their appearances, accents, and first languages (two brothers speak only Spanish). How does Amanda deal with being the only girl in the league? How do the kids learn to work together as a team? How does the coach get over his long-held bitterness and learn to appreciate imperfection?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
This lackluster remake of the much-loved 1976 Walter Matthau movie doesn't bring much new to the table. Retired minor league pitcher Morris Buttermaker (Billy Bob Thornton) played 2/3 of an inning in the majors, at a time "long ago and far away," and describes his current situation like so: "I make a living killing rats so I can pay rent on a trailer." Sarcastic, frustrated, and frequently drunk, he agrees to coach a Little League team that includes players of various abilities (one is in a wheelchair, another is overweight, another short and puny, etc.) and backgrounds ("I got the damn League of Nations here," he grumps).
Nostalgic for a time when little kids uttering obscenities was considered hilarious mischief, BAD NEWS BEARS is surprisingly unimaginative, given director Richard Linklater's previous displays of ingenuity, including School of Rock, Waking Life, and of course, Slacker. (Sadly, the film's standout aspect is editing: scene to scene, it's spectacularly incoherent.) Basic plot: mean coach turns nice, and team comes to believe in itself.
As Buttermaker squares off against the rival team's coach, a bully named Bullock (Greg Kinnear), he also comes to respect his own team, as much for their oddities as for their spirit. He also sleeps with one player's mom (Marcia Gay Harden), makes the kids work for him exterminating rats and bugs, trots out a midget for no apparent reason (except, it seems, the Bad Santa writers, who scripted this film, like this particular "joke").
Though Buttermaker advises his players to lie to their parents when the team is losing ("Lie your ass off, tell 'em what they wanna hear"), everyone's happy when the team begins winning, this after Buttermaker recruits a great pitcher, his ex's daughter, Amanda (Sammi Kane Kraft, a real life Little League pitcher) and a great hitter, long-haired, just-out-of-juvie skater boi Kelly (Jeffrey Davies), who has a crush on Amanda. Kraft (who is quite good) and Thornton develop something like a charming rhythm, but for the most part, the film feels sloppy, riding on the lingering appeal of the original.
Families who enjoy this movie might seek out the 1976 original Bad News Bears (though its sans-Matthau sequels are less worthy), School of Rock (Jack Black coaches misfit musicians), Friday Night Lights (Thornton coaches high school football), Hard Ball (Keanu Reeve coaches urban Little League), and the annoying Kicking & Screaming (Will Ferrell coaches soccer). Older viewers might like The Upside of Anger, where Kevin Costner plays a similarly sulky but less annoying ex-ball player.
Rate It!
| Content | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS | adults | kids | ||
Sexual ContentCoach gets "Gentlemen's Club" to sponsor team, makes sexual references (including discussion of their "genital defense apparatus"), sleeps with a player's mom, takes kids to Hooters. |
 |
|
|
|
ViolenceFighting between players, dead animals. |
|
|
|
|
LanguageLots of obnoxious language, by kids and coach (hell, douchebag, s--thead, smart-ass, bitch-slap, etc.). |
|
|
 |
|
Message |
|
|
|
|
Social BehaviorEveryone is offensive in some way: they lie, cheat, say mean things, argue, and fight; they come together when they win. |
 |
|
|
|
CommercialismTeams are sponsored by fictional companies, references to Cadillac, liquor brands. |
|
|
|
|
Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoCoach is a grumpy alcoholic (to the point of passing out in one scene); J.J. Cale's "Cocaine" on the soundtrack. |
 |
|
|
|
