When you are pressed for time at the end of the day and you still have yet to write a review, you watch The Benchwarmers (2006).  You do this if you are me, anyway.  Coming in at a svelte eighty-five minutes, it begins and ends before you can say . . . oh no, I should have made other choices.  Yet, that is not a charitable thing for me to say, even if its brevity is the best compliment I can pay it.  Actually, that is not true.  Amidst the poop jokes, and other forms of juvenile humor, there is a solid anti-bullying message.  Combine that with my favorite sport, baseball, and you have something to get me through those few but difficult minutes.  Plainly, the movie is not funny, but God bless it for saying some of the right things, while doing so in almost all the wrong ways.

Adult paperboy (yes, you read that correctly) Clark Reedy (Jon Heder) is out making deliveries at the beginning of The Benchwarmers when he encounters his good friend Gus Matthews (Rob Schneider), a neighborhood handyman.  Across the street from where they are conversing are Nelson Carmichael (Max Prado) and two of his friends attempting to play baseball.  I say “attempting” because, as what are constantly referred to as “nerds,” they are not having a lot of success.  As a result, when a real little league team shows up early to practice, Nelson’s trio are forced to leave the field by being bullied.  Clark and Gus go to intervene, pulling another kid off Nelson after having to endure being pushed to the ground and farted in the face.  Gus speaks up, asking why the other kids cannot play as well, and the young team spouts all the expected stereotypes about non-athletic types.  Incensed, Gus challenges the tweeners to a game of baseball against him and Clark.  Clark asks if he can invite their other friend, Richie Goodman (David Spade), and Gus happily agrees.  Richie is just as inept as Clark, but accedes to playing in the game.  As for Gus, he barely pays attention to his wife, Liz Matthews (Molly Sims), telling him that she is ovulating as he searches for his old baseball glove.  As an aside, this Catholic reviewer kept wondering if her focus on her cycle is the result of her following the Creighton Model for natural family planning.  If you do not know what that is, do some research.  At any rate, he finds it and heads to the field.  I guess out of pity, the kids let the adults bat first.  It is painfully evident that Clark and Richie do not know what they are doing, or that they are aware of any of the rules of baseball.  Then Gus steps up to the plate.  He immediately launches a home run off the twelve-year-old pitcher.  He is also the one on the mound, tossing strike out after strike out and preventing the boys from scoring.  Thus, two uncoordinated men, and one with some talent, beat a little league baseball team.  For some reason, seeing them stand up to bullies, like the kids’ head coach Jerry McDowell (Craig Kilborn), inspires Nelson.  The young man tells his father, billionaire Mel Carmichael (Jon Lovitz), who comes to meet this unlikely trio.  He arranges for Clark, Gus, and Richie to play another team of youngsters, and the older guys once more triumph.  I guess they were never told that just because you can do something, you should do it.  Faith teaches such lessons, but again, I digress.  Once more for reasons at which I can only puzzle at, Mel senses an opportunity. Capitalizing on the growing popularity of grown men playing a game against boys, he organizes a tournament with his eponymous bunch playing against little league teams around the area.  Whoever wins gets a new baseball stadium built in their town.  This is inexplicably generous, but whatever.  From here, we see Clark, Gus, and Richie compete in a series of matches, though they get harder as they go along.  In order to teach Clark and Richie to be better players in general, Mel brings in his old elementary school classmate, Reggie Jackson (as himself).  This is of some assistance, but it mostly remains up to Gus to do the bulk of the work.  You might be thinking, wait a second, Mel does not fit with what I expect in terms of athletic prowess from a nerd.  In other words, he was not one of the eponymous persons.  Still, he was involved in bullying, being the person dishing it out instead of the one on the receiving end.    Because of, and again due to factors I again cannot understand, the newsworthy popularity of the title team’s success, and thanks to a person from Gus’ past, Steven (Terry Crews), we learn that Gus was the perpetrator of bullying rather than the victim.  So, that is why he is playing?  This revelation comes as a shock to all involved.  Luckily, Liz is the voice of reason, suggesting that he apologize to the person.  Healing is always a good thing in God’s eyes.  The person Gus bullied is the unfortunate cinematic choice of Marcus Ellwood (Joe Gnoffo), a little person.  Though Gus has done the right thing, he is still not able to be on the team for the final game inside Mel’s new stadium, miraculously built in twenty-four hours.  Even though Marcus comes to tell everyone how good of a man is Gus, not only is the star player out, but so are Clark and Richie.  Instead, they have a collection of kids who have not been given the chance to play due to their relative inability.  It comes down to the final inning with Jerry’s squad winning by more than forty runs and the coach wanting to complete the humiliating shut out.  Some of his players, particularly the pitcher, tired of Jerry’s antics, decides to lay one in the strike zone for Nelson.  He makes contact and the fielders purposely mishandle the ball, leading to him scoring.  A furious Jerry is left behind as the combined teams go to Pizza Hut (ah, product placement) to celebrate.

At least there is a solid Catholic bit at the end of The Benchwarmers with Liz announcing that she is pregnant with hers and Gus’ baby.  Otherwise, despite what I said about the positive anti-bullying message, I would be remiss if I did not point out a glaring flaw in this movie.  Perhaps I am biased here as the victim of such treatment, which left wounds that only God can fix.  Yet, the film is contributing to the problem with some of what it shows.  By relying on stereotypes to tell jokes, it is perpetuating some of the attitudes that lead to bullying.  There is material so common to films of this period, like fat and gay jokes.  There are also more subtle jabs at little people, making them out to be mascots that can be picked up and cuddled like freaky children.  The point I am trying to make is that these depictions are not dignified.  They do not see others as God sees them.  I get that this is meant to be a comedy, but when you have to rely on this kind of humor, along with the toilet variety, then I must say that I am glad we have moved into a different era for these kinds of movies.  If I may build the film back up again, if slightly, it is important to point out how damaging can be the kind of behaviors you see from people in power against those they perceive as weaker.  At one point, Jerry says what some in these positions seem to think: that those beneath them exist solely for the strong to have an outlet for their might.  Jesus is with those lowly people, and we cannot forget this fact.  I believe this is a key factor in why underdog stories are so popular, underscoring the correctness of this key aspect of God.  He is with the downcast, those who seem to have no hope, and we want to see such people succeed as a result.

While it is nice to see The Benchwarmers get their chance, I wish it was in a better format than this movie.  I am not alone in panning it.  There is little reason to watch it, much less recommend it.  If the lessons were not wrapped in such awfulness, then maybe, but even then it would be difficult to give the go ahead.  Overall, just avoid.