Bad News Bears Film review

By Paul Anthony

It seems like back in the earlier 2000’s Billy Bob Thornton was making a name for himself with his style of acting and that being a mean and yet sarcastic  A-Hole, it only made sense that he would be good in this role. 2003 was good year for him and Bad Santa was a hit and could he struck gold again? I think over time this film began to have a cult following but at the time of its release the budget was 35 million and it only grossed 34 million which would make it a failure. I wonder why the budget was so high to begin with, I would have thought this film’s budget would be around 15-20 million, because minus Billy Bob Thornton and Marcia Gay Harden, there really wasn’t any other big name that would command a lot of money, most of the cast was just kids or extras. A lot of times most of the budget will go to graphics or big names stars, which makes me wonder how much Billy Bob was going to get for this film. As I stated this film should have been around 20 million tops. In the end it doesn’t matter I don’t think they were aiming for a series unless the numbers really wowed the studio.

Here we meet Morris Buttermaker a washed up former baseball player who works as a exterminator and wanting to make more money because a coach for a baseball team, which are basically the wild crazy kids of the losing team. Added in the equation the Buttermaker who drinks and flirts with women actually fit in with the kids, he then realizes he needs to put together a winning team after arguing with another coach. They then get a sponsor even though it was a strip club and Buttermaker recruits a girl who is a daughter of his ex and a hot shot kid who can bat and things start to change for the team but then Buttermaker changes his ways when he realizes he is having fun and wants the kids to do the same. they make it to the championship game where Buttermaker pulls his stars. so the others could play the game and they come up just short but doesn’t matter he celebrates with the team for coming in second place with non-alcoholic beer.

Now I never watch the very first film so I can’t compare the two films, I think the best part of the film was Billy himself, the rest of the laughs were far in between with the kids not being actually funny just being kids. Which can be a hit and miss and in this cast was a miss. Now the story was good but the execution just wasn’t there. In the end the film could have been better at the time. In the end I am giving this film a C for a rating. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. Obviously the film didn’t make a profit so we never got a sequel but as I stated before I don’t think they were aiming for a series.

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