| | | Get Off the Bench & Get Into the Game.
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Dolby Digital (5.1); Dolby Surround Sound, Deleted Scenes, Featurettes, Commentary, Chinese, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai Subtitled
Gus and his nerdy buddies, Richie and Clark, are scouted by a millionaire nerd, Mel, who wants to form a baseball team and compete with the meanest Little League teams in the state. A stellar ballplayer, Gus becomes a role model for nerds and outcasts everywhere. But when his fans learn that Gus, himself, was once a school bully, they feel outraged and betrayed, until Gus takes extraordinary steps to win back their admiration and trust.System Requirements:Run Time: 80 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE
"...morphing of "The Bad News Bears" and a "Three Stooges" episode..." Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
Editor's Note
Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions--in cahoots with director Dennis Dugan (HAPPY GILMORE), stars Rob Schneider (DEUCE BIGELOW: MALE GIGOLO), Jon Heder (NAPOLEON DYNAMITE), and David Spade (TOMMY BOY)--seeks to level the eternal struggle between jocks and nerds in the raucous comedy THE BENCHWARMERS. Schneider plays Gus, a landscaper, who, along with his newspaper deliveryman pal Clarke (Heder), comes upon a hapless group of kids being picked on by a bully baseball squad on the sandlot. When one member of the squad delivers a non-culinary "beef stew" to one of weaklings, the two adults intervene. As he waxes nostalgic on the baseball diamond, Gus challenges the tough Little Leaguers to a scrimmage, and Clarke and his other uber-nerdy and decidedly nonathletic friend, video store clerk Richie (Spade), are recruited--and the eponymous Benchwarmers are formed. Soon, news of the three sissy men versus the nine jocks-in-training spreads and comes to the attention of billionaire geek, Mel (Jon Lovitz). With Mel's help, a state-wide tournament is created allowing any youth baseball team the chance to knock off the Benchwarmers. As the frenzy grows, all jocks and wimps, young and old, come out to support their side with the final verdict in this never-ending war for supremacy. While the movie features cameos from real-life sports personalities Reggie Jackson, Sean Salisbury, and Bill Romanowski, its highlights are the antics and comedic chemistry of its leads. If flatulence, juvenile sex jokes, feces, agoraphobia, robotic butlers, and baseball are your recipe for riotous belly-laughs, than BENCHWARMERS is nothing short of a grand slam.
| Features | Deleted Scenes | | Mr. October Featurette: Behind the Scenes with Reggie Jackson | | Nerds vs Bullies Featurette: Whose Side are You On? | | Play Ball Featurette: Cast and Crew Discuss America’s Pastime | | Who’s On Deck? Featurette: Howie’s Greatest Moments | | Commentary with Jon Heder and David Spade | | Commentary with Director Dennis Dugan | | Widescreen Presentation | | Audio: English Dolby Digital (5.1); Dolby Surround Sound | | Subtitles: Chinese, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai |
| Technical Info
|
Release Information
| | Studio: Sony Pictures |
| Release Date: 2/26/2008 |
| Running Time: 85 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2006 | | Catalog ID: 13869 | | UPC: 00043396138698 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English, French (unspecified), Portuguese (unspecified), Spanish (unspecified), Thai (unspecified) | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Chinese | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew | David Spade | | Jon Heder | | Jon Lovitz | | Rob Schneider | | Adam Sandler - Producer | | Allen Covert - Writer | | Barry Bernardi - Executive Producer | | Dennis Dugan - Director | | Nick Swardson - Writer | | Peck Prior - Editor | | Sandy S. Solowitz - Editor | | Sebastian Jungwirth - Cinematographer | | Thomas E. Ackerman - Cinematographer | | Waddy Wachtel - Original Music By |
|
| | Professional Reviews | Entertainment Weekly
"The three losers play a series of Little League teams, snatching victory from the jaws of slapstick humiliation." -- Grade: B- 04/21/2006 p.57Variety.com 7 of 10
Gags about boogers, flatulence, projectile vomiting and "titty twisting" are batted about like so many foul balls in "The Benchwarmers," a minor-league comedy about three adult dweebs who seek redemption of some sort by playing and defeating Little League teams in tournament play. Pic wasn't prescreened for critics, perhaps because Sony figured this blooper was aimed at people who don't read reviews (or much of anything else)...a fantasy, impure and simple, so it's probably unfair to judge the behavior of its characters by real-world standards. - Joe Leydon
The Onion A.V. Club 6 of 10
For the first two acts, veteran lowbrow director Dennis Dugan at least keeps The Benchwarmers' pace brisk and the wall-to-wall soundtrack upbeat and infectious. Then the big third-act twist arrives and the film drags to a finish, leaving a slug-like trail of squishy sentimentality. As in previous Happy Madison productions, booger-eating jokes and half-hearted uplift do not prove a winning combination. - Nathan Rabin
|
| |
|
|
|
5
