Jandy JonesWhen three grown men challenged a Little League baseball team for rights to play on the field, no one knew what they were getting themselves into.
The little league team thought it had the game in the bag until Gus, played by Rob Schneider, hit one out of the park. Gus continued to hit home runs and pitch nothing but strikes. The Little League team lost.
Gus’s team consisted of himself and two older guys that had never played baseball: Ritchie, played by David Spade, and Clark, played by Jon Heder.
“The Benchwarmers” is a tale of nerds playing baseball instead of sitting on the bench.
When Gus’s team, affectionately dubbed the Benchwarmers, is asked by Mel, played by Jon Lovitz, to play in a tournament where the winner gets a brand-new baseball field, Gus and his friends agree.
The three-man team eventually grows in popularity and is supported by children who never got to play baseball.
Determined to win the big game, Mel gets his friend Reggie Jackson, played by himself, to teach the Benchwarmers how to hit, catch and run. Jackson’s teaching practices include hot-potato catching, ding-dong ditch and mailbox smashing.
The semifinal game proves to be a challenge when the other team brings in a Dominican Republican player to pitch and hit against the Benchwarmers. The Benchwarmers overcome their challenger and win go on to the big game.
Right before the big game, fans discover that Gus used to be a bully. Gus’s fame begins to decline until he redeems himself in more ways that one.
The ending will leave viewers laughing and talking about the heart-warming change of the bullying Little Leaguers.
The director, Dennis Dugan, did an excellent job creating laugh-out-loud scenes and keeping the audience guessing with his box office hit.
The movie in its first week and has already grossed $19 million, making it to No. 2 in the list of top movies just in its first weekend April 7.
This movie includes more than just funny scenes and bullying. Dugan manages to include morals in his story. The Benchwarmers emphasize the effects of bullying and how nothing good comes of it.
The first scene shows Gus watching three children, who were playing baseball, getting picked on by an older Little League team. He intercedes after Nelson, Mel’s son, gets pinned and tortured.
After watching the children play baseball, Gus was inspired to gather his two friends to play. When Clark, Gus and Ritchie go back to the field to play, they are confronted by the Little League bullies. This is when the challenge for the field begins.
Nelson witnessed the Benchwarmers slaughter the Little League team and told his father, Mel, who is then inspired to start his tournament of little leaguers and three older guys.
“The Benchwarmers” isn’t about revenge. It is about giving all children a chance to play baseball and not sit in the dugout.
The baseball comedy will leave audiences asking and reciting lines from the movie much like Heder’s debut movie “Napolean Dynamite.”