Review: Bad News Bears

Posted by: Tom Milroy  •  July 22, 2005 @ 11:59am

Filed under: Reviews

Every now and then, it's nice to watch a movie that doesn't really care about being politically correct. Bad News Bears is the most un-PC movie since Bad Santa, and wouldn't you know it, both star Billy Bob Thornton.

When is the last time a baseball movie featured a kid in a wheelchair playing in the outfield? That's right, never. "Pride of the Yankees" this ain't.

Billy Bob plays Morris Buttermaker, a one-time minor league baseball star who made it to the majors for two-thirds of an inning. He's now an exterminator who doesn't seem to give a damn about anything: he drinks, he curses, and he never sees his daughter.

The team of misfits he reluctantly agrees to coach is a microcosm: there's the fat kid, the kid with a bad temper, the kid who doesn't speak English, and the kid who is truly an awful athlete. Like the 1976 original, the kids on the team are as foul-mouthed as Buttermaker.

Greg Kinnear plays an opposing team's coach who is all about winning, and Marcia Gay Harden plays a single mother who has a thing for Buttermaker.

As expected, Buttermaker turns the kids into baseball players who get all the way to the championship game. Do they win? I can't tell you that... that would be bad news.