Directed by:<\/b> Richard Linklater
\nStarring:<\/b> Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Sammi Kraft, Brandon Craggs, Timmy Deters, K.C. Harris, Tyler Patrick Jones
\nRated:<\/b> PG-13 for rude behavior, language throughout, some sexuality and thematic elements
\nParental Notes:<\/b> This film deserves its PG-13 rating; although it features kids in the 10-13 set as characters, the foul language and rude behavior may be a bit much for some parents to consider this appropriate for their own kids. That said, the underlying messages of the film are good and most kids have heard all this language before.<\/p>\n
\nSome might see “Bad News Bears” as a sign that Billy Bob Thornton is becoming typecast. Morris Buttermaker is a worn-down, morose, alcoholic loser of a character who, on the surface, seems in the vein of Willie, Thornton’s role “Bad Santa.” Moreover, Thorton played a coach in “Friday Night Lights.” Although Buttermaker may seem like a weird blenderization of the two, he isn’t. He’s a lot cheerier than Willie, for starters, and while deep down he does have a love of the game of baseball, he’s no rootin-tootin’ tough-love coach. Thornton gives the role just the right amount of self-aware, semi-despairing kindness to make us like Buttermaker a lot more than the old curmudgeon likes himself.
\nAs the film opens, Buttermaker leaves his day job as an exterminator to arrive late for Little League practice. He pours out half his can of non-alcoholic beer so he can top it up with whiskey, and guts it out through first practice with a team so packed with losers that the rest of the league is trying to put them out of their misery by disbanding the team. There’s little pitcher Toby (Ridge Canipe), the non-English-speaking brothers Jose and Miguel Aguilar (Carlos and Emmanuel Estrada), wheelchair-bound Matthew (Troy Gentile), brainy Prem (Aman Johal), mouthy Tanner (Timmy Deters), pudgy-and-pissed-about-it Mike (Brandon Craggs), quiet Ahmad (K.C. Harris), utterly loony Tim (Tyler Patrick Jones), and hapless Garo (Jeffrey Tedmori). They can barely catch balls, let alone hit them, and it’s no wonder that Toby’s legal-eagle mom had to get an injunction to keep them in the league.
\nButtermaker is about ready to give up on them too, until the nasty coach of the league champions, Roy Bullock (Greg Kinnear), says some all-too-true things about the team and gets him riled up. You see, Buttermaker was in the minor leagues as a pitcher once, and actually pitched for part of a major league game. He knows how the game is played, and all the little tricks to help make up for unevenly distributed natural talent. He also knows how to bring in exceptionally talented players — Amanda (Sammi Kraft), the daughter of one of his exes, and Kelly (Jeff Davies), a rebel with a lot of talent. Buttermaker doesn’t coddle the kids, but he does believe they can be good at baseball if they try, and that’s more than they’ve had from anybody in a long time.
\nIn many ways, this is a typical underdog kids movie. It’s not over-the-top smarmy, thankfully; there’s too much vulgarity and good-natured “life is the pits” camaraderie for that. This is not all sequins and first-place ribbons, and the film is better for it. The grownups are flawed, the kids are almost too different to work together, and it’s refreshing.
\nOverall, “Bad News Bears” is a good kids movie, though some parents may want to protect their children from the swearing. It’s not for little kids, mind you — this is no fantasy feel-good movie for kindergarteners. This is for kids at the age to learn that life isn’t always what you’d hope but that sometimes it can come pretty darn close.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed by: Richard Linklater Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Sammi Kraft, Brandon Craggs, Timmy Deters, K.C. Harris, Tyler Patrick Jones Rated: PG-13 for rude behavior, language throughout, some sexuality and thematic elements Parental Notes: This film deserves its PG-13 rating; although it features kids in the 10-13 set as characters, the foul language and rude behavior may be a bit much for some parents to consider this appropriate for their own kids. That said, the underlying messages of the film are good and most kids have heard all this language before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-rated-pg-13"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oSX4-3g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1757,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/1757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}