Original Publication: Newsweek, August 8, 1977
Last year’s “The Bad News Bears,” about a hapless Little League baseball team in California, directed by Michael Ritchie, was a new kind of kid’s movie – tough, funny and hard-nosed. Its sentiments had nothing to do with winning one for the Gipper. How could it when Walter Matthau played the reluctant, alcoholic coach and Tatum O’Neal the star girl pitcher? Its sequel, THE BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING, directed by Michael Pressman, arrives without Matthau and O’Neal – but with a clumsy parallel to the Gipper and a lot of sappy sentimentality.
The Bears are still inept as ever, but now they look as if they’ve been struck in some made-for-TV movie, complete with scenes that dissolve into blackness and practically beg for a commercial. In fact, the whole firm seems structured for television – less gamy, more trite and focused on the story of a boy and his estranged father. Can they make it to first base or will they strike out?
Without a coach, the Bears set out for Houston in a stolen van to play four innings in the Astrodome with their Texas counterparts between the games of a major-league doubleheader. When they arrive, their bad-boy star, Jackie Earle Haley, finds his father, William Devane, whom he hasn’t seen in eight years. Devane is supposed to be a pipe fitter, but he acts more like a self-assured, sincere college coach; he whips the Bears into such good shape in just a weekend that they once again win against all odds. He also manages to win back the heart of his hurt son. (We know this because of the way the strings play in the background whenever the two talk to each other.)
When the boys who play the Bears are on screen, which is often, their natural high spirits and spontaneity do much to enliven the tired script and soft direction. Kids will still find watching them vacation-time fun. But in the end, the “Bad News Bears” without Matthau, O’Neal and Ritchie is like the Mets without Tom Seaver – deep in the doldrums.
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