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'Bad News Bears': They're still just goofy kids

The original 1976 Bad News Bears, starring Walter Matthau as a marvelously rumpled but rudely inspirational Little League coach, was something of a revelation to a then 5-year-old Flick Chick.

It confirmed a universal childhood truth that I'd long suspected — that kids can be foul-mouthed, over-competitive, nasty little wombats. And that exposure to wholesome, all-American pastimes like baseball might make them better people, but, at their core, they still might be nasty little wombats.

And there's an honest beauty in that.

Paramount Pictures 'Bad News Bears' The bottom line: Weird. Rude. Cute. Just like your kid. Director: Richard Linklater Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden, Timmy Deters, Sammi Kane Kraft Run time: 111 minutes Release date: July 22, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for rude behavior, language throughout, some sexuality and thematic elements. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Bad News Bears"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

The brilliant Richard Linklater's new version of Bears is only slightly toned-down from the deliciously cursey, punchy original, and it tells the same story — an astonishingly inept group of Little League baseball players, led by boozelicious coach Morris Buttermaker (Billy Bob Thornton), attempt to conquer their own suckitude and tendency to beat each other up long enough to win some games.

It's funny to me that so many of my critical brethren and sisteren label any movie about rag-tag kid athletes Bad News Bears rip-offs, because the wannabes and the original have one ginormous fundamental difference. The squeaky-clean kids in, say, The Mighty Ducks were sort of dorky, but only because they couldn't play hockey that well. Under the tutelage of drunken yuppie Emilio Estevez, they flourish into contributing members of society and kick-butt players, and Emilio gets off the sauce and learns to, as my sister would say, find his smile in the eyes of a child.

Well, the kids in both versions of Bad News Bears would probably take one look at those freshly-scrubbed little Ducks, so earnestly rallying to make their coach and their mamas proud, and beat them up.

It's not that pint-sized hooligan Tanner (Timmy Deters), odd dork Lupus (Tyler Patrick Jones) or studious geek Prem (the adorably deadpanned Aman Johal) are evil — and I gotta tell you that after the demonic darlings of The Ring and Dark Water, I'd started to drive past Chuck E. Cheese's with a cross, Holy water and a net.

The thing is that the Bears represent a very real segment of society that doesn't usually get a lot of attention — the endearingly weird. I think the original Bears are more the spiritual godfathers (and in one case, godmother) of the freakishly charismatic frat boys of Revenge Of The Nerds.

They do decide to play society's little game, and excel at it. But at the end of the day, they're still exceedingly goofy. And for every uncoordinated kid, like me, with thick glasses, negative hand-eye coordination and a tendency to trip over her own feet, there was something oddly reassuring about that. You could be good. But you'd still be you.

Billy Bob Thornton, of course, is the patron saint of the cinematic weird dudes, someone I find extremely talented and, yes, more than a little attractive. My friends think I've gone bonky here, but I love that he's broken through the character actor glass ceiling and become a leading man.

The real-life Thornton would appear to have a bit of the Bear in him — he's a guy from Arkansas with undeniable talent as an actor, writer and director who didn't change his accent or his name to be taken more seriously. He's stayed weird, and that's awesome.

Billy Bob's Buttermaker is a slightly cleaner version of the foul department-store Santa in Bad Santa, but a leaner, sleazier version of the Matthau original. He's a broken-down, stripper-loving pest exterminator who was in the major leagues for, literally, about 15 minutes, and who accepts an offer from a high-powered mom (Marcia Gay Harden) to coach her neglected son Toby's (Ridge Canipe's) team.

He's doing this because he needs the cash, not because he wants to be a role model. He demonstrates this by making Toby lug his cooler of beer to the dugout.

The team consists not only of Tanner, Lupus, Toby and Prim, but Garo (Jeffrey Tedmori), who wants to impress his Armenian immigrant dad; pudgy catcher Engelberg (Brandon Craggs); and wheelchair-bound guiltmaster Hooper (Troy Gentile). They eventually stop yelling at each other long enough to learn to play, but are assisted by two ringers — Amanda (Sammi Kaye Kraft), the ace daughter of Buttermaker's former girlfriend, and dirt bike-riding hoodlum Kelly Leak (Jeffrey Davies).

I must mention that Davies captures the long-haired preteen angst of Jackie Earle Haley, the guy who played Kelly in the original movie. Jackie isn't all that well-known today, but imagine, if you will, a guy with Outsiders-era Matt Dillon's silent intensity, and I Was Made For Dancing-era Leif Garrett's hair length. He was awesome, and unjustifiably forgotten about. If we're still talking about C. Thomas Howell — and I know somebody has to be — we should be talking about Jackie. Just saying.

The best thing about the new Bad News Bears, besides Billy Bob, is that Buttermaker's change of heart about teaching the kids comes not because he feels sorry for them, but because he thinks he can make ballplayers out of them. He still brings strippers to games. He's still delightfully weird. He just realizes that the kids are his true, weird compatriots.

The Flick Chick's Bottom Line: Weird. Rude. Cute. Just like your kid.