Bad News Bears (remake)

Okay, so Richard Linklater took on the unwise task of remaking a comedy classic. Even so, I enjoyed this version quite a bit, due in no small part to Billy Bob Thornton who proves himself time and time again to be one of our master screen actors.

Let me note something right from the start: I'm no fan of sports movies, so the fact that I enjoyed it has nothing to do with a love of sports in general or baseball in particular.

The role Thornton plays here is a semi-reprise of his Bad Santa character. He plays a ball player who played 2/3 of an inning as a Seattle Mariner before being given the boot.

Now, he makes a living as an exterminator and took on a job coaching a local junior league baseball team. The team he ends up with is the typical pack of misfits one finds in movies in this genre.

I can't say it deviates far from the clichés of this genre, either, with the coach who doesn't give a rat's ass to start with finally getting his own act together enough to whip the team into shape for the big game. And of course, it's a movie about how the kids rise to the occasion.

There is a subplot about his relationship with the 12 year old daughter of an ex-girlfriend who can throw a 95 mph fastball which is surprisingly touching, more due to the acting of the girl (Sammi Kraft, who actually is a baseball star) than Thornton. One can feel her longing to be loved which seems forlorn because the Thornton character seems totally incapable of exhibiting anything a kid would recognize as affection.

At first not caring, he begins to feel competitive with the egotistical tightass coach of the current champs, played in an almost phoned-in performance by Greg Kinnear. Now, wanting to win, he teaches the kids to play and actually swings a bit too far in the wrong direction, wanting to win so badly that he forgets that the kids want to play as well, so he has kids walking into pitches in order to get on first base and he's telling a kid who's a talented fielder to grab any ball he can reach even if the ball is going more directly to one of the other fielders.

The misfit kids are good enough in their roles, but it is Thornton who carries this movie, and even if he's not nearly as bad as the character her played in Bad Santa he's bad enough to keep it interesting. I think you'll enjoy this movie even if you won't hear its name at Oscar time.