La chouette équipe

I remember watching the Bad News Bears as a teenager close to when it first came out, and thinking that yeah, this was a fun movie that kind of reminded me of real life. The movie was famous at the time, and I never remembered it being anything more than a fun entertainment. When I watched it again a few days ago (perhaps the first time in 30 years), I was really startled. This movie was not just funny but impressive, capturing something of the truth about the way adults and kids really interact with each other in our society. The kids are gritty--they swear, they fight, they are insolent and belligerent, they are cruel (sound familiar?). The adults are hyper-competitive, drunken, prone to selfish projection, lazy and insensitive (sound familiar again?). The movie becomes much more than a feel-good underdog story (although it would inspire many such imitations) but rather becomes a desperate struggle for dignity among all the participants in a situation that is full of snares. This is a really good movie, not particularly for kids to view.

"The Bad News Bears" came out in 1976, the summer that I started playing little league. I know I am not breaking any new ground when I say that this film is a classic, but hopefully I can educate some of the younger viewers and posters as to how realistic this film is, in some ways.

First of all, I believe that anyone who has ever played organized youth sports has had a Tanner Boyle, Timmy Lupus and a Kelly Leek on their teams. This is just how it is, and for better or worse, it is one of the galvanizing factors that make youth leagues etch themselves indelibly into the memories of all those who have participated in them.

Second of all, kids curse. I don't know who the "nay-sayers" out there are, but they should look back into their own memories and try to figure out just when they learned to use the F-word. If you didn't learn it from your parents, you learned it from other kids. Granted, not all of us knew exactly what the words meant at that age, but we still used them. It was a small measure of rebellion at the age of seven.

When Tanner Boyle makes the comment that the team is filled with "niggers, spics, Jews and now a broad," it would be a crass, hateful comment if it had come from an adult. Yet, as a youth, Tanner gets a laugh because we all know that he doesn't really mean it, he is just repeating what he has heard at home -- not to condone what might have been said over the Boyle dinner table. The proof of this is obvious when Tanner "takes on the seventh grade," and makes a valiant attempt to preserve Timmy Lupus' honor before he gets thrown into a garbage can. Regardless of Tanner's racist remarks about the team, and his shunning of Lupus, "Lupus, why don't you sit over there? (abbr.)" he is willing to fight for those same people.

Third, (sorry for the digression), that's what parents are like. It is a truth that goes down through the ages: when it comes to their children, all adults are a-holes. When it comes time to see their children strive to excel at something, they become the obnoxious, bullying, chest-beating sh**s they have warned their children not to be. For the most part it is an extension to the children for what the parents' couldn't be in the first place, e.g. a good shortstop.

And Fourth: Losing. There is something about those pinstripes and even the moniker "Yankees" that make some of us want to do violent things to a couch. Mind you, I am not a native southerner, nor am I a Red Sox fan. I am just a man who can see the fact that pinstripes and the word "Yankees" symbolizes a corporate juggernaut that tries to annihilate the concept of fair play. For the Bears to ultilmately lose to the "Yankees" is just. They got beat. Perhaps it is an irony that this movie came out one year after the last choppers left Saigon, that defeat was in the air, so to speak.

There was still a message to this movie. A message that I have carried throughout my adult life. A message that Churchill had during the Blitz, and Giuliani had in the post 9/11 rubble. Once again, a line from Tanner Boyle: "Hey Yankees, you can take your trophy and shove it up your ass. Just wait until next year!"

I was really impressed with how well this movie has "aged." Walter Natthau plays that role of the alcoholic wash-out to perfection, and Tatum O'Neal portrays the struggle of a young girl trying to enter adolescence without losing her sense of "self" with delicacy and skill. It's a good story,with quite a bit serious to say about human nature and the understandings and misunderstandings between generations; it makes me mad that it never received the attention it deserved because it's "just" about kids. On a sadder note, I also couldn't help being impressed with how far this culture has regressed since 1976. The children's use of even mild profanity would never be permitted now in a "family film," and the wonderful scene at the end would certainly send the Thought Police running for their placards and boycotts. It's worth watching this film again just to remind ourselves that only 30 years ago children still enjoyed some autonomous space in which to grow, and the iron doors of the Nanny State had not yet completely swung closed upon them.

Scrappy pool-cleaner (and former ballplayer) in Southern California gets talked into coaching Little League to a bunch of no-talent boys. I don't think I've ever seen another movie that captured this bit of Americana so vividly: you can almost smell the freshly-cut grass and the cigar smoke in the air! One of Walter Matthau's many triumphs, and Tatum O'Neal as the pitching ace is also terrific (especially in the dug-out scene where she tries involving Matthau in her life and he cracks, sending her away in tears: "You don't wanna go, fine, no big deal."). The young boys are mostly all wonderful: Alfred Lutter, from "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", as the nerdy brain; Jackie Earle Haley as the cool kid with shades and motorcycle; Brandon Cruz, from "The Courtship of Eddie's Father", as the pitcher for the enemy-team. The film has some overacting and is occasionally sloppy (with the boom-mike showing, as well as O'Neal's stand-in in a wig), but is otherwise extremely well-written and designed and directed. In 1976, this had kids and adults lining up to see it, so I wouldn't consider the picture a 'sleeper' or an underrated film. It was a big commercial box-office hit and there is an audience for it wherever there's a DVD player and a screen. ***1/2 from ****

This is a superb movie. I don't think it will ever become dated--not as long as little league baseball is in existence. I remember first seeing it at a drive-in when I was ten, shortly after my own little league season had finished. Walter Matthau is excellent as Buttermaker, the beer-soaked coach who takes on the unwanted task of coaching a team of misfit kids who were allowed to play in the league only after a civil action law suit was won in their favor. Tatum O'Neal shines as the team's recruited pitcher Amanda, whose mother once dated Buttermaker. A touching subplot involves the relationship between Amanda and Buttermaker which turns from distant to warm as the final game approaches. Vic Morrow gives a frighteningly good performance as the out-to-win-no-matter-what coach of the opposing team who was never happy with the fact that the Bears were allowed to play in the first place. Joyce Van Patten is also good as the butch, outspoken league supervisor.

It's the kid players that really give this movie the edge. All performances are top-notch, and director Michael Ritchie splendidly keeps the focus mostly on them and their feelings about the whole ordeal. Stand-outs include Jackie Earl Haley as the heroic Kelly Leak and Chris Barnes as shortstop Tanner Boyle. This film should be a warning to relentless adults who try to achieve stardom on the backs of their children, be it on the baseball field or on the ballet floor.