Ain't exactly All-Star material, but good enough for a few minutes off the sidelines

Rating: 6/10 (31 May 2006)

Right upon seeing the trailers of the film, I have always thought that it would be another one of those Adam Sandler-produced films with Rob Schneider among the leads. It is; although to some extent, I found it entertaining, albeit not hilarious in a roll-on-the carpet sort of thing. As has always been said, it's good for a few laughs and that's far more than I can say for most comedies I've seen this year (although one can argue that it could be just because I was having a pretty bad morning). It's oodles of sophomoric gags and potty humor (as expected) but they managed to pull it off. The material is so ludicrous that on paper it's hard to see how enjoyable it can be, especially since you know how it's going to start, how the plot will be driven, and how's it going to end. But, so help me, I ended up liking the end product.
The movie starts with nerdy Nelson playing baseball with his friends on a diamond when a team of bullies picks on them. Landscape artist Gus (Schneider) and newspaper boy Clark (Jon Heder), who happens to be nearby, chase the bullies away. Together with Richie (David Spade), the three of them play ball but soon, the bullies return demanding that they leave. Gus challenges them for the right to the field, and the three friends win. This impresses Nelson's father Mel (Jon Lovitz), a billionaire, and subsequently holds a single round-robin wherein their team, The Benchwarmers, will battle it out with all the little league teams in the county, for the right to a new multi-million baseball park he's built. Yeah, right.
Granted, pratfalls aren't necessarily a constant source of humor. But somehow I had this perverse pleasure from watching Heder's clumsiness and Spade's deadpan humor during their training with Reggie Jackson himself, and the actual games. Heder's Clark character hits the same spaced-out note as he always does, but he's still pretty funny in a non-irritating way. Schneider is laid-back here, which goes against his usual style.
The real surprise, however, is that a movie with such obviously low intentions would play its cards right with director Dennis Dugan and writers Allen Covert and Nick Swardson managing to keep the film from being a total frenzied hodgepodge of witless humor whose only purpose of being there is to stretch the running time. There's nothing groundbreaking about it nor it is something special that you should rush to see it in theaters. But I found it entertaining and I had no regrets seeing it. Then again, I was having a bad morning so I may be wrong.