Nick Clement brings us his The Bad News Bears review.
Hard-drinking, ex-minor-league hopeful Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau) grumpily agrees to coach a Little League team at the behest of lawyer-councilman Bob Whitewood (Ben Piazza), who has a vendetta against the league for excluding his marginally talented son from play.
After failing with his new team of misfits, Buttermaker enlists feisty and gifted pitcher Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O’Neal) to lead the charge — but can he find the luck and patience to whip these outcasts into shape?
Bill Lancaster’s genius-level screenplay was equally matched by Michael Ritchie’s low-key, uncannily astute direction, while every single child performance was extraordinary, to say nothing of Walter Matthau’s bold and spicy turn as a functioning alcoholic who becomes an obsessed little league baseball coach.
The various social comments that the multilayered narrative makes are scathing, especially the sly discussion of adults taking the coaching of children in sports leagues way too seriously.
Big-time Jerry Fielding POWER. It’s also painfully funny, and littered with casually racist and foul-mouthed dialogue that would never be contemplated in a PG-rated movie in our current world climate.
Ritchie’s similarly fantastic, small-town beauty pageant satire, Smile, which was released one year before The Bad News Bears, shares the latter’s same visually observational qualities; there are so many wonderful small directorial moments which add up to something that’s truly the sum of its parts.
Huge John A. Alonzo POWER all over the place; the use of the long shot in this film is striking.
Currently streaming on Amazon Prime at no additional rental cost fee, and available on gorgeous Blu-ray, if you know where to look…!
The Bad News Bears review by Nick Clement
Our Rating
Summary
No more, no less.
A stone cold masterpiece
