Roger Ebert Praised Billy Bob Thornton's Remake Of A Classic '70s Movie

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Roger Ebert is one of the most beloved film critics of all time. He was knowledgeable, passionate, and had a rare talent for being able to entice mainstream moviegoers into checking out arthouse fare. He was also funny, particularly when tearing up a movie that he felt wasted his time (as recorded in the collection "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie").

Sometimes, however, he was exasperating. Many of Ebert's savage pans for significant and well-crafted films (e.g. Ken Russell's "The Devils," Richard Rush's "Color of Night," and David Lynch's "Blue Velvet") were baffling, but the ones that drove me up a wall were his three-star passes. While the most infamous might be his recommendation of the lumbering "Speed 2: Cruise Control," there was one review of his that I hated, hated, hated.

You see, Ebert had a personal problem with Michael Ritchie's "The Bad News Bears." The 1976 baseball classic centers on a misfit Little League team coached by an alcoholic former minor leaguer (played to curmudgeonly perfection by Walter Matthau), but it dredged up troubling memories of young Ebert being relegated to right field while better athletes showed off to their parents' delight. Ritchie's "Bad News Bears" is a vulgar/sweet romp, yet in his three-star review, Ebert insisted, "It's an unblinking, scathing look at competition in American society — and because the competitors in this case are Little Leaguers, the movie has passages that are very disturbing." 

Later on, Ebert added, "[Ritchie] directs scenes for comedy even in the face of his disturbing material, and that makes the movie all the more effective; sometimes we laugh, and sometimes we can't, and the movie's working best when we're silent." Bizarrely, years later, he felt that Richard Linklater's de-fanged, Billy Bob Thornton-led remake leveled a more effective indictment of poisoned competition.

Richard Linklater's "Bad News Bears" re-teamed Billy Bob Thornton with his "Bad Santa" screenwriters John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, which seemed an inspired decision. Unfortunately, they had to deliver a PG-13 film, which meant toning down the edgy humor that made Michael Ritchie's movie a barbed hoot. You're supposed to wince at little kids cussing up a storm while remembering you probably had a foul mouth like that at their age.

The biggest problem with Linklater's film is its frustrating devotion to the original's narrative. There are tweaks here and there, but its characters are mostly reheated versions of the ones we loved in Ritchie's masterpiece. Thornton feels particularly constrained here as a not-so-bad coach.

Roger Ebert re-litigated his unhappy Little League run when reviewing the 2005 movie. This time out, he elaborated on his despair:

"They revived my own childhood memories of Little League, which I hated; it was a meritocracy in which good players were heroes and I was pointed toward right field with the hope that I would just keep on walking."

I, too, had a lousy time playing Little League, but the brutal honesty of Ritchie's movie is missing in Linklater's version. Ebert disagreed:

"What I liked most about the movie, I think, is that it undermines the self-congratulatory myths we cultivate about sports in America. It writes the obituary of good sportsmanship. Grantland Rice wrote, 'It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.' To which, according to the Baseball Almanac, the celebrated baseball team owner Gene Autry replied: 'Grantland Rice can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned.'"

Ritchie's film does precisely this with greater wit and grit. Meanwhile, Linklater's redo is the worst film of his career.