Film Reviews

Bad News Bears

• Rating:
• Director: Richard Linklater
• Starring: Billy Bob Thornton
• Details: US / 113 mins (12A).

Womanising alcoholic Morris Buttermaker (Thornton), a former baseball star turned rat-catcher, signs up to coach a Little League team of no-hopers and turns their season around. If that sounds like a familiar set-up, be reassured: while the team includes Mexicans, Armenians, Asians and a kid in a wheelchair ("Why would I want to play baseball? I'm a damn paraplegic!"), this is a strictly non-PC version of the more conventional kiddies sports movies. "You swing like Helen Keller at a pinata party," is one of the boozed-up Buttermaker's less helpful comments during early batting practise, and the coach soon has the kids helping him catch rats and mix martinis. Happily, the kids are allowed to behave like kids generally do: squabbling, bullying, name-calling and brawling are all integral to their pre-game warm-up, and while they become more proficient at baseball as the season wears on, their behaviour shows little sign of improving. Thornton is suitably laconic as the boozehound coach who has no understanding whatsoever of children, possibly because he is the worst juvenile delinquent on show, and his bemused, deadpan delivery provides enough laugh-out-loud moments to make this one worth your while.

Review by Declan Burke