Bad News Bears

2005 Comedy

A washed-up ballplayer is put in charge of a pack of kids scarcely more mature than himself in this remake of the 1976 comedy hit. Morris Buttermaker (Billy Bob Thornton) is a former major league baseball player whose career and life has hit the skids thanks to his overwhelming fondness for booze and women. Needing a break, his lawyer (Marcia Gay Harden) arranges for Buttermaker to take on coaching responsibilities for the Bears, a Little League baseball team comprised of a handful of hapless losers. As Buttermaker tries to groom his young charges into a winning team, he also gives them a glimpse of his hard-living lifestyle while they gear up to take on perennial rivals the Yankees and their arrogant Coach Bullock (Greg Kinnear. The 2005 version of The Bad News Bears was written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who previously scripted another Billy Bob Thornton vehicle, Bad Santa. more..

Director: Richard Linklater

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden, Sammi Kane Kraft, Ridge Canipe

 20 Reviews  3 Awards

Reviews

  • New-era losers (the cast is a cheery scrum of relaxed kids, led by genuine whiz pitcher Sammi Kane Kraft in the role created by Tatum O'Neal) now include a rotten kid in a wheelchair.

    Lisa Schwarzbaum - Entertainment Weekly

    29 November 2012

  • Filled with small, cute kids and large, goofy laughs and buoyed by fine supporting work from Greg Kinnear and Marcia Gay Harden, the director's latest effort won't rock your movie world, but the fact that he manages to keep the freak flag flying in the face of our culture of triumphalism is a thing of beauty.

    Manohla Dargis - The New York Times

    29 November 2012

  • A straightforward, surprisingly faithful and definitely loving adaptation of the original.

    Carina Chocano - Los Angeles Times

    29 November 2012

  • Matthau was merely worthless, while Thornton, God bless his soul, rises to the actual level of sociopathic. I love it when that happens.

    Stephen Hunter - The Washington Post

    29 November 2012

  • The movie is like a merger of his ugly drunk in "Bad Santa" and his football coach in "Friday Night Lights," yet Thornton doesn't recycle from either movie; he modulates the manic anger of the Santa and the intensity of the coach and produces a morose loser who we like better than he likes himself.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    29 November 2012

Awards

  • Best Animation/Family

    Golden Trailer Awards (2005)

     

  • Choice Summer Movie

    Teen Choice Awards (2005)

     

  • Best Performance in a Feature Film - Young Ensemble Cast

    Young Artist Awards (2006)

Lists

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