Susan Granger’s review of “Bad News Bears” (Paramount Pictures)
Billy Bob Thornton somewhat cleans up his slovenly, cynical “Bad Santa” persona and trots it onto the baseball field in this remake. Somewhat because there’s still more vulgarity and profanity than most parents would prefer and more than enough to delight its PG-13 audience. Thornton plays Morris Buttermaker, a former player-turned-surly, slothful exterminator, who is bribed by a manipulative single mom (Marcia Gay Harden) to turn 12 athletically challenged youngsters into a viable team. The Bears roster includes fastball pitcher Amanda Whurlitzer (Sammi Kane Kraft); bad boy Kelly Leak (Jeff Davies); bratty Tanner Boyle (Timmy Deters); Garo Daragebrigadian (Jeffrey Tedmori) with his Armenian family; Mark McGwire-obsessed Ahman Abdul Rahim (Kenneth “K.C.” Harris); nerdy Prem Lahiri (Aman Johal), who keeps his stats on a laptop; pudgy catcher Mike Engelberg (Brandon Craggs); shy Timmy Lupus (Tyler Patrick Jones); Spanish-speaking brothers (Carlos and Emmanuel Estrada); the lawyer’s son (Ridge Canipe) and paraplegic Matthew Hooper (Troy Gentile) in his wheelchair. Their longtime rivals are the league-champion Yankees, coached by smug, smarmy Ray Bullock (Greg Kinnear). Addressing the issue of overscheduled children and parents, Glenn Ficarra & John Requa’s (“Bad Santa”) updated, expletive-laden version of the late Bill Lancaster’s subversive 1976 screenplay, helmed by Richard Linklater (“School of Rock”), cleverly maneuvers Thornton’s irascibility into the sardonic, Schlitz-chugging slob created by the late Walter Matthau – and the kids have distinctive, memorable personalities. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bad News Bears” is an incongruously politically incorrect 8, a raunchy, laugh-out-loud funny movie.
