The Bad News Bears 1976

Looking to get his son involved in a prestigious little league system that's already over capacity, a well-connected father greases a few palms, recruits his own team of misfits and hires a miserable ex-pitcher to show them the ropes. I'm not really sure what the dad's plan is here, as he quickly fades out of the picture while the team, predictably, plummets straight to the bottom of the standings. Did he expect them to fail and merge with an established club? Maybe he just needed to get that kid out of his hair? Either way, his methods are as strange as his paternal instincts are suspect.

Morris Buttermaker, the down-and-out former ace who's tasked with supervising the kids, is a hopeless drunk who alternately neglects his players and torments them. He's barely present to start the season, passing out at practice and slamming brews during games, but something about the team's fighting spirit pierces the fog and draws him out of his private slump. When that switch flips, he shifts from a ghost to a tyrant. No longer apathetic to more than the source of his next drink, he overworks his best players and berates the others for small mistakes. This puts the kids in a weird place: they admire his experience and appreciate his advice, but hate the way he makes them feel. They want to win, but they want to have fun, too, and as their record improves, the pressure to triumph supersedes love of the game. Buttermaker isn't the only coach to fall into this trap; he's just the first to realize it. It takes him long enough, right up to the championship game, but he does come around and the moment he realizes that he's being a toxic old jerk is powerful.

Mostly a screwball comedy that delights in the shocking vulgarity of its young cast, there's also something heartier, something meaningful, churning beneath the surface.