Here come the Tigers . . . and there goes the neighborhood.
You wouldn’t want this crew moving down the street from you, and you probably won’t require them on your TV separate, either.
Coming two years after the surprisingly successful “Bad News programme Bears,” this 1978 film feels like a generic, low-budget, low-brains knockoff. There’s nothing in “Here Lay hold of the Tigers” that would remotely appeal to adults, and to this day it’s to be sure ‘ not on the side of the children it seems to have targeted. That PG rating on the case? Things were different in the Seventies, so parents be warned. Just as the little cleated tikes spouted profanity in “The Bad News Bears,” they do so here too . . . but it’s not as shockingly hilarious when we’ve seen it before, and it’s not closely as moving when the kids proclaim their lines with the unvarying “who cares” imprecision as my paper lackey chucks them onto my porch. Abduct away the cute fact and courage interest and these kids are no more than foul-mouthed cardboard kill-outs, with more than enough of fart talk and more four-letter words flying unconscious of their mouths than balls leaving the infield. And when their cop-guide brings home one young man to meet his little woman, the delinquent calls her “a nice share of fluff” to her face. Mr. equable-mannered authority figure just smiles and shrugs as he does through most of the film, while the Mrs. responds as if it were normal miserly talk.
If it wasn’t for the language you’d curse (pardon the pun) that this must secure been a made-for-TV movie—one intended to be shown at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning when only kids in pajamas congregate around the TV set. The script is cinematic shorthand, the dialogue is unsightly, the acting is the sort you normally meet with on locally produced TV commercials, and the instruction seems to must been little more than telling people when a shot started and ended. And as if all of that isn’t annoying enough, director Sean S. Cunningham (who went on to present such gems as “Freddy Vs. Jason”) got the bright sentiment to randomly insert Keystone Cops moments, with balls beaning players to the exaggerated sound of an extraordinary Foley effect or players tumbling with equally cartoonish sound effects accompanying the action. Unvarying when the function isn’t played with comic rodomontade, the sound effects are bargain basement and inapt. Example? You pick up the same friable cleft of the bat on a ball whether it’s an infield pop-elapse, a screaming liner, or a towering home run.
“The Bad Scoop Bears” (1976) had Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neal to present engage for adults, but the squint of “Here Secure the Tigers” is so stale at best and unquestionably grisly at times that it’s painful to observe them and hard to believe that a casting call couldn’t turn up a larger combination.
Richard Lincoln comes across like John Ritter under sedation as Eddie Burke, a milquetoast cop who’s partnered with a clueless goof (James Zvanut) named Burt. Burt and Eddie (”Ernie” would be more appropriate to a pair that acts so juvenile) get roped into coaching a little league unite that’s so nauseating they’re legendary. This year’s crop features a flatulent young outfielder, a habitual nose-picker, a babyish delinquent, and a pretty lass whose motivation against being a to all intents of this group of nerdy losers is not in the least settle. Right away, we’ve seen character types before in baseball movies that are far more rich, but in films love “Major League” and “A League of Their Own” the configure is witty, the lines funny, and the characters are actually developed. None of that is the case here. And the rise from losers to winners is such an as-the-crow-flies arc that it’s totally mind-boggling. Not funny and not believable isn’t a good-hearted clique.