{"id":2143,"date":"2024-08-07T04:23:34","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T04:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2143"},"modified":"2024-10-14T12:40:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T16:40:18","slug":"the-bad-news-bears-in-breaking-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/07\/the-bad-news-bears-in-breaking-training\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training<\/strong> (1977)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, racial epithets, mild sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Pressman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Paul Brickman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Craig Safan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fred J. Koenekamp\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 8, 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: William Devane, Clifton James, Jackie Earle Haley, Jimmy Baio, Chris Barnes, Erin Blunt, George Gonzalez, Jaime O. Escobar, Alfred Lutter, Brett Marx, David Pollock, David Stambaugh, Jeffrey Louis Starr, Quinn Smith, Lane Smith, Fred Stuthman, Dolph Sweet, Pat Corley.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0While The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training<\/strong> isn\u2019t exactly bad news, it doesn\u2019t come close to recapturing the magic and hilarity of the 1976 original about the underdog Little League baseball team that rose to the challenge and played in the climactic championship game against a stronger, better team. They lost, but winning wasn\u2019t really the point. So why is it that they\u2019re referred to as \u201cthe California champs\u201d throughout Breaking Training<\/strong>? Did the makers of this amusing but inferior sequel actually see the first movie? How did such a gaffe get past studio execs? Did they honestly think that nobody would notice?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Right off the bat (ha ha), this second movie makes an error. The rest of it feels like warmed-up leftovers that still retain some of the flavor, but not enough of the taste to make it substantial or particularly satisfying. I wanted to see Breaking Training<\/strong> when it came out in summer \u201977, but my dad was still mad about \u201call the GD bad language\u201d in the first movie so the answer was an emphatic \u201cNO!\u201d I saw it on network TV a couple of times (not the same), but didn\u2019t get to see it uncut until early fall \u201986 when it played on HBO. It has its fair share of funny moments, but the overall effect is far less than the original movie, still one of my favorites.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Because they\u2019re the champs (?!), the Bears have the privilege of playing a four-inning exhibition game against the Texas champs, the Houston Toros, at the Astrodome. All they need is a coach. Original coach Buttermaker is nowhere in sight, same goes for pitcher Amanda. Bad boy player Kelly Leak (Haley) devises a plan to fool everybody\u2019s parents into thinking that the half-witted groundskeeper is the new coach. What he actually plans to do is drive the team to Houston himself (he\u2019s like 13, right?) in a \u201cborrowed\u201d van without an accompanying adult.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The lineup for this trip includes foul-mouthed Tanner (Barnes), fat kid Engelberg (Starr), black kid Ahmad (Blunt), bookworm Ogilvie (Lutter), nervous Rudy (Pollock), unassuming Toby (Stambaugh), quiet Feldman (Marx) and non-English speaking brothers Jose (Escobar) and Miguel (Gonzalez). New to the team is big-talking pitcher Carmen Ronzonni (Baio, cousin to Scott), a braggart who\u2019s all talk and no talent. Kelly has an ulterior motive for making the trip, to reunite with his estranged father Mike (Devane, Marathon Man).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The team eventually makes it to Houston where they almost instantly arouse the suspicion of the local police. Kelly asks his father to temporarily serve as the coach so the team can play the exhibition game for which the winners get a shot at playing against the champs in Japan thus setting up the scenario for the next and last sequel, The Bad News Bears Go to Japan.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Breaking Training<\/strong> doesn\u2019t break any new ground with its predictable story arc- i.e. the team rising to the challenge (again), Kelly bonding with his dad, the mean opposing team, etc. Strangely enough, the Bears are once again incompetent ball players and need to get their act together. Did they really forget everything Buttermaker taught them in the span of a year? While we\u2019re on the subject of departed friends, were they that reliant on Amanda\u2019s skills that they fall apart without her? I\u2019m just saying.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Bears have cleaned up their act a bit since the first movie, the kids don\u2019t swear quite as much. That is except for Tanner who rattles off his usual litany of profanity and racial slurs. But he gets to show his softer side in his friendship with Lupus (Quinn Smith), laid up with a broken leg and unable to make the trip. He decides after watching the late movie that they need to win this one for \u201cthe Looper\u201d. Speaking of memorable lines, during the climactic game which gets cut short due to time constraints, coach Mike leads the entire stadium in the now-famous \u201cLet them play!\u201d chant.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A movie like Breaking Training<\/strong> would likely not get made today with its depiction of kids smoking cigarettes (Kelly), driving without a license and reading dirty magazines. If it did, it certainly wouldn\u2019t get a PG rating. It\u2019s interesting how much mores change with the times. What seemed acceptable in the 70s (Kelly smoking) is completely inappropriate and un-PC today. Growing up in the 70s, I remember seeing a lot of teens and preteens smoking (behind their parents\u2019 backs but still). I guess what I\u2019m saying is that I appreciate Breaking Training<\/strong> on the level of how it captures a time when kids behaved or misbehaved differently.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I like the Bears\u2019 original line-up very much and while it\u2019s great seeing them again, I\u2019m not so sure about the addition of Carmen. He\u2019s the kind of kid you just want to smack in the mouth. He\u2019s the schoolyard big shot that claims to be great at everything, but when he fails to deliver, he has some lame excuse as to why he\u2019s coming up short. He gets a bit more likable as the movie progresses, but he\u2019s still rather irksome. He\u2019s one of the reasons that Breaking Training<\/strong> comes up short. It\u2019s an amusing little sports comedy, but so predictable and formulaic that it almost seems pointless. It has its moments, but it\u2019s not a home run. Instead, it makes it to second before being called out.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, racial epithets, mild sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Pressman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Paul Brickman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Craig Safan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fred J. Koenekamp\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 8, 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: William Devane, Clifton James, Jackie Earle Haley, Jimmy Baio, Chris Barnes, Erin Blunt, George Gonzalez, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Bad-News-Bears-in-Break.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2997,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/2997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}