What do you do if you have to put your drinking habit on hold long enough to drive to little league practice? Well, if you’re Morris Buttermaker, you might choose to dump out half your non-alcoholic lager to make room for that bourbon you had stashed in the glove compartment.

Coincidentally, this might actually be the best way to enjoy not only a little league game, but the movie about little league games, “Bad News Bears.” Though the story stays rather faithful to the original film starring the perfectly grumpy Walter Matthau, this latest installment falls vastly short of its classic predecessor both in comedy and charm.

The problem with “Bad News Bears” is not its star, Billy Bob Thornton, who plays Buttermaker with obvious admiration for Matthau’s miserly old character, but also with his own Thornton smugness. Thornton plays his role with some undeniable similarities to his “Bad Santa” character — drunk, grumpy and self-absorbed. Buttermaker is different from “Bad Santa,” in that Thornton gives him more humility and allows him to grow into a tough but fun-loving role model. It works.

What also works are the young actors who comprise the team of little leaguers; they all seem desperately committed to their mis-fit characters — the smart ass, the nerd, the pee-wee, the fatty and a girl, just to name a few.

What doesn’t work is the environment in which these talented young actors and the skinny old actor must perform. The dialogue doesn’t really seem to have a target audience, which makes it difficult to figure out how to react. With every other word spoken from Buttermaker and from the boys a slurry of swear words, the film is far too profane for children, the intended audience according to previews.

Although the dialogue is too extreme for a young audience, it is too dumbed down for adults. Though the film is a faithful adaptation of the original story, director Richard Linklater’s handling of the material is too formulaic.

Various scenes, obviously intended to make a point about the developing relations of the young boys, exist totally independent from the rest of the film. The interactions are never mentioned again for the rest of the film, making potentially promising scenes wind up as nothing more than a random moment in the movie that did little for the development of the story.

The process the boys go through of learning to play a game and learning not to take it too seriously is by far the best part of “Bad News Bears.” Yes, they worked hard, and of course, they didn’t give up when they were down on their luck. But the most important thing for players, coaches and spectators is the importance of having fun.

Unfortunately, the moral lesson in any movie typically doesn’t manifest itself until the last few minutes. So for the first 110 minutes, besides great performances from Thornton and the little boys, the film is little else than a verbal canvass splattered with unnecessary profanity enclosed in various isolated and confused scenes.