Bad News Bears

How the game is played takes precedence over winning or losing in a remake of Michael Ritchie’s classic baseball comedy from 1976. With only slight adjustments to the original storyline director Richard Linklater regulates the comic tone toward making a fundamental statement about sportsmanship and even about American political conduct with our global rivals. Billy Bob Thornton is enjoyable although not entirely comical as Morris Buttermaker, a former pro baseball player turned rodent exterminator, who takes on a job coaching a team of Little League baseball misfits. Linklater’s “Bad News Bears” doesn’t approach the giddy comedy of Ritchie’s original, but it does inspire an attentive contemplation on the similarities and differences between adults and children in approaching the game of life. 
Rated PG-13. 111 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)