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Saturday, April 8, 2006
Goofy 'Benchwarmers' is good in a pinch
In January, the fine folks at Happy Madison Productions inflicted "Grandma's Boy" upon the innocent moviegoing public, the first of about a dozen films this year that have opened without being shown to critics ahead of time.
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The same tactic is at work with the release of "The Benchwarmers," a poor man's "Bad News Bears" in which grown-up nerds get retroactive revenge by beating up on bully Little Leaguers on the ballfield.
Yeah, it's as stupid as you would expect. It has more than its fair share of booger jokes and flowing bodily fluids, even for a movie directed by Dennis Dugan ("Happy Gilmore," "Big Daddy") and written by Allen Covert and Nick Swardson (who also co-wrote "Grandma's Boy") -- Adam Sandler pals, all.
But for a movie whose cast consists of "Saturday Night Live" alums, ESPN "SportsCenter" personalities and the dude from "Napoleon Dynamite," it's surprisingly funny every once in a while in an unabashedly goofy way.
Rob Schneider, David Spade and Jon Heder co-star, with Jon Lovitz playing the billionaire geek with a "Star Wars" fixation who finances their makeshift team.
Schneider's Gus is the most socially well-adjusted of the bunch, with an implausibly hot wife (Molly Sims) who's constantly begging him to impregnate her. Spade's Richie works at a video store and is still a virgin at 39; Heder co-stars as Clark, who wears a helmet and knee pads even when he's not riding his bike.
Together, the trio takes down a series of Little League teams, with Gus functioning as a modern-day (and much smaller) Babe Ruth, pitching and slugging his way to victory. Richie and Clark mostly hit themselves in the head with the bat and muff fly balls. The gag gets old fast.
And even though he's ditched the 'fro and the T-shirts with unicorns on them, it's impossible to separate Heder from Napoleon Dynamite, the character that made him a pop culture icon. Every time he opens his mouth and says, "Dang it!" or awkwardly stumbles toward first base -- with the bat still taped to his hands -- you're reminded of that film, and of the fact that he needs to find a vastly different gig quickly, or risk getting typecast. (It's probably already happened.)
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