The Bad News Bears

The Bad News Bears

Michael Ritchie’s “The Bad News Bears” is a comedy, and it certainly has the laughs to prove it. But there’s something deeper at play here than just a funny movie. It gives an unflinching and biting view of competition in American society, which is particularly disturbing because the competitors are little leaguers.

The film centers around what has to be one of history’s worst teams (though I once played right field for one that was just as bad). The children are demoralized, scared of the ball and very uncoordinated; they wouldn’t even be playing if they weren’t used by an open-minded city councilman as a test case. The team includes a black child, several Mexicans and various other minorities ultimately adding a girl to their roster.

Since no respectable coach would go near such a pathetic team, the councilman hires a coach (illegally). His pick: Walter Matthau as an alcoholic ex-minor leaguer who mothers warn their children about. He drinks bourbon mixed with beer out of cans in the dugout and he doesn’t understand kids or care about them at all. Even the kids see through him.

Most of this movie’s humor is pretty easy to come by. Matthau is always fun to watch, especially while he sits in the dugout hung-over with bleary eyes as his Bears come out after the first inning 26 runs behind. The kids are good too; Ritchie sees them realistically but without sentimentality and allows them to use language that we wish 12-year olds didn’t know about yet. Matthau works with these kids and despairs with them until finally against his better judgment he starts caring and goes out looking for a ringer Amanda Tatum O’Neal who is his former girlfriend’s daughter whom he raised into a first-rate pitcher over twelve years.

All of this unfolds more or less according to expectation, including obligatory scenes where the Bears get their uniforms, Matthau shaves for the first time, boys insist on athletic supporters until Amanda wears one too and they win their first game. But underneath all this entertaining fluff something else is happening here: We start sensing how vital Little League really is to its adult participants involved in it how much emphasis they put on winning if winning alone matters then how you win doesn’t matter so much anymore either; even Matthau gets into it himself ordering his kids deliberately hit by pitched balls telling new recruit Jackie Earle Haley (playing neighborhood delinquent/natural athlete) grab as many plays away from teammates as possible.

Competition seems like Michael Ritchie’s specialty as director having previously made movies about Olympic ski champions (“Downhill Racer”), political races (“The Candidate”) beauty contests (“Smile”).

All three films are great but “The Bad News Bears” is, in some ways, his most harrowing portrait of how sometimes we’d rather win than keep our self-respect. He directs comic scenes even against his disturbing material and that makes the film all the more powerful; it’s the best when we laugh sometimes and can’t other times, but it’s working better when we’re quiet.

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