2006 American film
The Benchwarmers is a 2006 American sports-comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Allen Covert and Nick Swardson, produced by Adam Sandler and Jack Giarraputo. Starring Rob Schneider, David Spade, Jon Heder, Jon Lovitz, Craig Kilborn, Molly Sims, and Tim Meadows with supporting roles by Nick Swardson, Erinn Bartlett, Amaury Nolasco, Bill Romanowski, Sean Salisbury, Matt Weinberg, John Farley, Reggie Jackson, and Joe Gnoffo, it tells the story of three nerds and a billionaire forming the titular baseball team to take on the little league baseball teams.
Produced by Sandler's production company Happy Madison Productions in association with Revolution Studios, The Benchwarmers was released in the United States on April 7, 2006, by Columbia Pictures. The film was met with negative reviews, but was a box office success, grossing $65 million on a $33 million budget.
A direct-to-video sequel titled Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls was released in January 2019.
Plot
Gus Matthews, Richie Goodman, and Clark Reedy are adult "nerds" who spent their childhoods longing to play baseball, but never got the chance. When a nerdy, chubby, unathletic boy named Nelson Carmichael and his friends are bullied and kicked off a baseball diamond by a local little league team, Gus and Clark chase the bullies away. When Gus and Clark go with Richie to the field to play a game, the bullies return and demand that they leave. Gus challenges the bullies to play them for the field. Despite Richie and Clark's horrible ballplaying, the three win the game due to Gus' surprising aptitude. The three soon befriend Nelson's billionaire father Mel at Pizza Hut, while having an encounter with Richie and Clark's childhood bully Jerry, though Gus stands up to Jerry when he picks on Richie and Clark. Later, a man named Brad, another one of Clark and Richie's childhood bullies, challenges them to another game, but the three friends win again.
Later, Mel invites the trio over to his house, and tells them about his plan to hold a round-robin with all the little league teams in the state, plus their team. The winners will be given access to a new multimillion-dollar baseball park. The three name themselves the Benchwarmers and join the tournament. The Benchwarmers win every single game, with Clark and Richie's abilities gradually improving, and the team becomes popular among many nerds, children with poor athletic abilities, and the general public. As the tournament goes on, Jerry and his fellow little league coaches Brad, Karl, and Wayne start meeting together to think of plans to defeat the Benchwarmers, and Richie's brother Howie, who suffers from agoraphobia and has not left the house for months, eventually joins the team, while Gus' wife, Liz, becomes frustrated that Gus keeps putting off her ovulating schedule since she wants to start a family.
At the semi-final game, the competing team's coach Wayne is down to the Benchwarmers by several runs. Desperate, he seeks the help of a 30-year-old Dominican professional baseball player named Carlos to join his team to get back into the game. Despite Carlos clearly being an adult and having a falsified birth certificate that was written in green crayon, Wayne bribes the home plate umpire to successfully get Carlos onto his team. The impact is immediate as Carlos's superb pitching and hitting get Wayne's team back in the game. However, the Benchwarmers quickly realize that Carlos has a major drinking problem, and they give him as much alcohol as possible throughout the rest of the game. After a bunt from Gus, the Benchwarmers run into their first instance of loading the bases, leading to Howie's first at-bat due to being the only Benchwarmer on-deck. Howie is hit by a pitch due to Carlos being intoxicated, which drives in the game-winning run for the Benchwarmers.
After that victory, Brad and Karl find evidence during a poker game that Gus was a bully himself as a child from their poker buddy Steven, known for using name calling over physical force and had bullied one boy named Marcus so intensely that he had to be sent to a mental institution. Seizing this opportunity, Jerry and Steven expose Gus' secret to the public with help from Steven's old principal, shaming Gus into resigning from the team. Liz finds out about his involvement and asks if that was why he kept postponing their attempt to start a family; Gus expresses fear that his kids would suffer bullying growing up, and this would be a form of karma coming back to him. Liz then encourages him to go apologize to Marcus, and Gus later sincerely apologizes to him just before the final game. On the day of the big game against Jerry's baseball team at Mel's newly-built stadium, Marcus forgives Gus in front of everyone, and Gus re-joins the team, announcing that Marcus is the Benchwarmers' new third-base coach.
In the final game, Gus, Clark, and Richie let a team consisting of Nelson and other non-athletic children play, to give them a chance to compete. In the final inning, the Benchwarmers are losing, but Jerry's team sees that the Benchwarmers are having fun playing the game anyway. Seeing how abusive and uncaring Jerry is and realizing the true spirit of the game, they decide to let Nelson score a run with one player, saying that Jerry is "the loser". The Benchwarmers storm the field, celebrating the fact that they were not shut out. An outraged Jerry is then humiliated when he is left hanging by his underwear on a fence after getting a wedgie by Gus, Richie, Clark, Howie and Mel.
The entire Benchwarmers team, along with the kids from Jerry's team, Marcus, and even Carlos and Wayne, celebrate at Pizza Hut. Richie and Clark get girlfriends, Howie informs Wayne that he's overcome his heliophobia (though is still afraid of the moon), and Gus announces that he is going to become a father.
Production
The Benchwarmers was shot at various locations in California, mostly in Agoura Hills, in Chumash Park and at a Pizza Hut. Other locations were Chino Hills; Chino; Culver City; Glendale; Watson Drug Store – Chapman Avenue, Orange; Simi Valley; Westwood, Los Angeles and on Mulholland Hwy, Malibu (Mel's house). David Spade on The Howard Stern Show in 2006 said Artie Lagne was originally cast in Jon Hader 's role.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes The Benchwarmers scored 13% based on 71 reviews, with the site's consensus reading, "A gross-out comedy that is more sophomoric than funny, The Benchwarmers goes down swinging."[3] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 25 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[4] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[5]
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote: "The Benchwarmers is the sort of trash that Hollywood does really well" and noted it was only in theaters to raise awareness for the home-rental market. Dargis concludes by quoting Schneider, who called it "a master's thesis on the form of a quintessential Adam Sandler comedy."[6]
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave it a positive review: "This morphing of "The Bad News Bears" and a "Three Stooges" episode parades its dumbness with such zip that it almost passes for clever."[7]
Bob Smithouser of Plugged In wrote: "The three-man squad known as "The Benchwarmers" becomes a source of hope for nerds everywhere who appreciate being represented."[8]
Box office
The film was a box office success. In its opening weekend, it grossed $19.6 million, ranking second at the North American box office behind Ice Age: The Meltdown. The film finished with $59,843,754 domestically and $5,113,537 in other markets, totaling $64,957,291 worldwide.[1] The film held the record for the highest opening weekend gross for a baseball genre film,[9][10] until 2013 when it was surpassed by the Jackie Robinson film "42".[11]
Award nominations
2006 Teen Choice Awards:
2006 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards:
- Worst On-Screen Hairstyle (David Spade)
2007 Razzie Awards:
- Worst Actor (Rob Schneider)
2010 Razzie Awards:
- Worst Actor of the Decade (Rob Schneider)
Home media
The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray and UMD on July 25, 2006.
Sequel
In July 2018, Revolution Studios and Universal 1440 Entertainment announced a direct-to-DVD sequel titled Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls. The film was released on January 29, 2019, with Jon Lovitz reprising his role as Mel Carmichael.[12][13] The rest of the cast consists of Chris Klein, Chelsey Reist, Lochlyn Munro, and Garfield Wilson.
