To begin with: I haven't seen the original 1976 version of The Bad News Bears, but can it be considered enough that I've seen a few of its countless progeny over the years? The underdog genre has plenty of charms, and I'm sure the original film was wonderful, but there are times when I wonder if the world will ever tire of seeing a salty curmudgeon lead a team of losers to an unlikely victory and/or a sense of self worth; and at those times I can usually visit the cinema, watch the coming attractions and conclude that no, it isn't. In fact, I think there have been two such films released so far this summer, both unseen by me, and now the circle is complete (in the poetic sense, if not the commercial) with this remake of the picture that started it all. And I did see this one, not so much because it looked like a funny and fresh spin on an old hat as the fact that I counted on the pedigree of the talent involved to make it so.

The film was co-written by Glen Ficarra and Jon Requa , who apparently have adhered so closely to the original script that its writer, Bill Lancaster, long since deceased, receives credit as well. Ficarra and Requa wrote the brilliantly scabrous Bad Santa, which starred Billy Bob Thornton in a performance so good I'd have been perfectly happy if he just repeated himself here (which he pretty much does, and hey, I'm not complaining). And it's been directed by Richard Linklater, who made the best film of last year, Before Sunset, and prior to that revealed a wonderful talent at directing children in the terrifically, refreshingly unassuming family film School Of Rock. Shake all these elements up and the result is, unsurprisingly, an enjoyable mesh of all the good things about School Of Rock and Bad Santa that never manages to be quite as good as either but is by no means a bad film.

I liked how the film simply starts: almost no exposition, no hoodwinking. Thornton's alcoholic has-been shows up on the green, spends a few moments ogling some high school girls, and then sets about doing as little as possible to coach the worst little league team in history. There are some haphazard training montages to illustrate just how bad these kids are, and how little Thornton cares about them, and lots of interludes in which they all swear at each other with language that, given that much of it is coming from the mouths of seventh graders, pushes the boundaries of the PG-13 rating. This isn't family friendly the way School Of Rock was.

Thornton's perfected an incredibly endearing way of treating kids like garbage, and the film's enjoyable enough simply because of that dynamic. Between the familiarity of his performance and Linklater's extremely casual, almost shambling direction, the film feels a little too lazy at times, and now and then threatens to grind to a halt. But of course Linklater knew what he was doing; and when the film picks up speed towards the end and the cliches of the genre start coming hard and fast, his approach becomes far easier to appreciate, and helps defuse any of the saccharine moments that ensue when, indeed, Billy Bob manages to instill in the kids - and himself, by god! - a sense of self worth. It's by the numbers, but it feels sort of original; which may be something I might not be able to say had I seen the original, but I digress.

I enjoy seeing Linklater make films like this. It's easy to look at The Bad News Bears and School Of Rock as paychecks, used as leverage to get more challenging work like Before Sunset and the upcoming A Scanner Darkly off the ground, but I think that's an underestimation. He's no snob about his talents, and seems willing to apply them to any type or genre of film (I recently read an interview in which he claimed he'd love to make an action picture). And I think he applies them to the fullest, but with an understanding that one film's needs are not the same as another's. Hence, while I might think The Bad News Bears is lazy, I also think Linklater's made it as lazy as it needs to be.