84
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- The Bad News Bears is about kids, but they're real kids, not bland, cutesy, lovable Hollywood moppets. These pre-teens are unwashed, obnoxious, cynical, fractious, gleefully profane, unrepentantly juvenile, and deeply untrusting of any sort of authority — in other words, just like the kids you probably played team sports with.
- 90Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrMichael Ritchie keeps his dead-end cynicism in check and produces a genuinely funny comedy about a Little League team managed by a lovably drunken Walter Matthau. Sometimes Ritchie goes too far in avoiding the family-movie cliches the subject invites and indulges in some pointless vulgarity, but all in all, it's one of his best films.
- 90Time Out LondonTime Out LondonAmiably engrossing satire on the 'win ethic' that offers a take-it-or-leave-it approach to its serious points about enforcing precociousness on kids, but consistently delights with its panoramic comic invention.
- 90Film ThreatFilm ThreatMatthau should get points for allowing himself to be filmed as such an unlikable cuss, and Vic Morrow, as usual, is just short of psychotic.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe Bad News Bears is, in a way, [Ritchie's] most harrowing portrait of how we'd sometimes rather win than keep our self-respect. He 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.
- 75TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineAlthough the film could have been preachy, Ritchie handles the story and theme with deftness.
- 60The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyHas a number of other virtues that make it a surprisingly painless adventure. Among these are the screenplay by Bill Lancaster, Burt's son, who has the talent and discipline to tell the story of The Bad News Bears almost completely in terms of what happens on the baseball diamond or in the dugout.