The Bad News Bears

I actually liked The Bad News Bears(1976). It's not one of my favorite films but I did enjoy watching it. We got to see the theme of the underdog rising again. Former minor-league baseball player, Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau), now an alcoholic who cleans pools, becomes the coach for team of the worst players. The Bears team was pretty awful and was made up of mostly nonathletic kids. As Buttermaker realizes how terrible the team is he convinces Amanda Whurlizer (Tatum O'Neal), who used to be trained by him and is pretty good at pitching to join the team. The film had a good mix of comedic and sad scenes to make it a likable film in my opinion.

We saw as the theme of the underdog appears again in this film. The Bears start off as the worst team until they add two new good members Amanda and Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley). The Bears started making their way to the top until they reached their final game against the Yankees. We saw good character development in Buttermaker during the final game. As he becomes more competitive with Yankees coach Roy Turner (Vic Morrow), he only keeps  in the good players on the team while other players are stuck as the benchwarmers. However, when he sees the result of Turner's son Joey being hit by his father, holding onto the ball until Engelberg gets a home run, and ending up leaving the game and dropping the ball at his father's feet, Buttermaker realizes how competitive he has become. This leads to Buttermaker letting the other players on the field, giving everyone a chance to play. They ended up playing well together, but did not end up winning. Even though they did not achieve the victory they wanted they were still proud of themselves. Overall, I thought it was a good movie and might watch it again.