The Screwball: Major League II, Version 2

One of the amazing things about movies, aside from the fact that they have made Adam Sandler rich, is that time bestows upon them a second presence that can move the viewer to second thoughts. Upon a recent re-watching of Major League II, I observed dimensions of character and narrative that I couldn’t possibly have seen upon its release in 1994, and not just because I spent most of that year in orbit around planet Gillooly. For your consideration:

As the Indians arrive at spring training, it is immediately clear that success has changed them – so much so Wesley Snipes is now Omar Epps. Fresh off an executive director credit in the Charlie Sheen vehicle The Chase, Sheen himself arrives not on a Harley and not wearing leather but in a chauffeured Rolls and wearing a suit so fine that only Major League money could have produced it. Also back is Corbin Bernsen, from eight stellar seasons as Arnie Becker on L.A. Law. Retired from both baseball and overbilling, Bernsen now owns the team. Perhaps unaware that he is ever so slowly balding, Bernsen is as arrogant as ever and proceeds to prove it by wondering aloud if April is too soon for (Corbin Bernsen) Night.

Back, too, is Tom Berenger. Still shaken by his Platoon disadvantage with Sheen, he remains almost completely expressionless though nicely tanned. Reprising his role as Dennis Haysbert is Dennis Haysbert, now a peace-loving Buddhist who likens pop-ups to lonely snowflakes. Gone is his statue of voodoo god Jobu, replaced with a doorstop he stole from China Buffet.

The action opens with pitcher Sheen in a bullpen session with catcher Berenger. Despite the fact that Sheen murdered Berenger in the jungles of Vietnam, the mood is pleasant, though it should be noted that Berenger is wearing a protective mask. Owing to a cinematic technique called “not showing you everything,” Sheen ends the session after just one pitch, either because his arm is tired or because he has a threesome penciled in for 2 p.m. Curious, Berenger inquires as to the nature of the pitch. Resisting any urge to re-murder him, Sheen replies, “The Eliminator. It’s a combination screwball, split-finger and M16A1 assault rifle.”

In the batting cage is Omar Epps. Newly buffed up after his stint as running back Darnell Jefferson in The Program, the speedster is defying conventional wisdom by bashing dinger after dinger with a swing cobbled together from footage of dolphins swatting beach balls. Gruff skipper James Gammon, still with a collection of frogs in his throat, gives Omar the ol’ what-for, telling him that it’s the job of a leadoff hitter to get on base, “so hit the ball on the ground!” Omar just sneers and readjusts his gold chains, further dichotomizing old school and new school and thus dismissing Gammon’s turn in The Adventures of Huck Finn.

Back in the locker room, Berenger learns that he has been cut from the team. It’s not surprising, given the fate he suffered in Vietnam. However, the frogs in Gammon’s throat quickly inform Berenger that he can stay on as a coach. Berenger at first rejects the offer, but after changing into one of Don Johnson’s discarded sports coats, he grudgingly agrees to the coaching position, though only because Last of the Dogmen won’t begin filming for several weeks. Meanwhile, Sheen does a photo-op with underprivileged school kids whose teacher is his ex-girlfriend Michelle Burke of Dazed and Confused and not much else. While teaching the kids how to find an escort service in the Yellow Pages, Sheen wonders if he gave the young woman a sexually transmitted disease, and if so, which one, or maybe which two.

Opening Day arrives. Former Aviation Officer Candidate David Keith has now joined the team, having forgotten he committed suicide near the end of An Officer and a Gentleman. On the squad, too, are Erik Bruskotter, whose name is awesome, and a group of men for whom the background will become a familiar place. As the Opening Day starter, Sheen takes the mound and immediately allows torpedoes of truth so violent that they could have driven back the Viet Cong. Regardless of what he throws – The Eliminator, The Terminator, The Penicillin – the White Sox bash it as though it were a preview of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

In the bleachers, meanwhile, cynical Indians fan Randy Quaid is shouting his usual insults, apparently still bitter that he doesn’t have his brother’s abs.

Alas, the Tribe loses in the ninth when Haysbert, having struck a pigeon with a line drive, strays off the base paths to lecture the bird on the need for “innovative ways to help protect your world,” ways such as accident forgiveness and “life insurance, for the unthinkable.”

Following the loss, the team accountant announces to Bernsen that the Indians are running out of money and that he should accept the role of Flight Engineer Murphy in Aurora: Operation Intercept. Sheen, meanwhile, is cashing in on his image by appearing in commercials for deodorants that double as pheromone farms. His struggles on the mound continue, though, and soon the skipper’s throat frogs announce to Sheen that he is relegated to the bullpen, where he’ll have time to consider the real role that Wall Street should play in American commerce.

Desperate for money, either despite or because of appearing in three made-for-TV movies in the same calendar year, Bernsen sells Keith to the White Sox. As a throw-in, the Indians get Takaaki Ishibashi, who parades around in an interesting haircut while telling Haysbert that a “ballplayer must be a warrior, not a monk, and definitely not a president because a president can get assassinated, and assassination never helped anybody hit the curveball.”

Still desperate for money, either despite or because of appearing in Bud Bowl V, Bernsen sells the team back to previous owner Margaret Whitton, perhaps least known for her role in the 1991 sitcom Good & Evil. Still good at being evil, Whitton tells the players that they’re “going down in flames and I wanna be there when you go splat” without bothering to consider that something going down in flames wouldn’t go splat so much as pcccccssssshhhhhhhhhhh.

After Gammon tries to kill his throat frogs by suffering a heart attack, Berenger takes over as manager, probably to research his title role in the 1996 film The Substitute. Still the losing continues. As one of the 1,412 fans in the stands, Quaid has been driven to Cousin Eddie madness and calls Sheen a “human piece of cow flop,” to which Sheen responds by sleeping with a gorgeous set of conjoined twins. In the next game, the team hits a low point by engaging in a brawl near the dugout. In the locker room afterward, Bruskotter reminds everyone that he is in the movie by telling his teammates that they’re lucky to be playing baseball and that “I’ll be damned if I act like my best pig died just because we ain’t doin’ so good.” To which Berenger replies, “How good is your best pig? I mean, can she pitch?”

As scripted, the next game arrives. Newly inspired, Epps offers to pinch-run for Bruskotter after he, Bruskotter, legs out an infield hit while injured. It is an injury that Epps, though still a decade away from his role on House, diagnoses as Kawasaki’s disease until Bruskotter suffers a seizure right before the commercial, after which Epps diagnoses an ectopic pregnancy.

After Epps steals second, third and home, Haysbert delays his trip to the set of Waiting to Exhale by pinch-hitting for an actor who is far less famous. Conditioned by a history of sports movies, Haysbert homers and the Indians win. Not everyone is winning, though, not even Sheen. Back at his apartment, he overhears his supermodel girlfriend belittling him, mostly by dissing his phoned-in performance in Men at Work. Disappointed, Sheen courageously ends the affair by referencing his courageous performance in Courage Mountain, in which he saves five nubile orphan girls by “keeping them warm,” courageously, in the snow-covered Alps.

Despite his failure to get a hall pass, Sheen visits girlfriend Burke at the school where she teaches pre-adolescents how to act unconvincingly in mid-’90s Charlie Sheen movies. Later, over a pizza, Burke gives Sheen career advice by telling him, “You never used to worry about your arm, or your career…. Now you’re pitching like it’s your job, which is strange because you are a famous actor.” Following dinner, they go for a nighttime ride on his rediscovered Harley. After a stuntman performs a wheelie in a steam cloud, Sheen takes all the credit by kissing Burke, who quickly detects the distinct flavors of pepperoni and conjoined twins.

Back on the field, the Indians display their renewed zeal by participating in a sports-movie montage complete with high fives, low fives and teamwork. Next, a series of poorly constructed newspaper headlines reveal that the Tribe has worked its way back into contention.

Game time: With the Tribe one out away from a second straight division crown, Sheen walks a Blue Jays batter to put the tying run at the plate. In the bleachers, Quaid, apparently upset that he will be arrested in 2010 for felony residential burglary under Section 459 of the California Penal Code, shouts angrily at Sheen, “Wild Thing! Mr. Choke Thing! You make everything . . . embarrassing! But still – can I appear in your next movie? I’m gonna need to make bail.”

Citing arm fatigue and groin soreness, Sheen begs out of the game, at which point an actor making SAG minimum takes the mound and saves the win. Following the division clincher, Sheen pays a visit to his ex-girlfriend’s class of underprivileged scamps. After handing out baseballs, Sheen tells the children that he needs to leave. Outside, Burke admonishes him.

“These kids look up to you, mostly because you’re taller than they are. It would be the biggest thing in their year if you just hung out with them for awhile, but unfortunately you think some corporate orgy is more important!”

“It’s just a business thing,” Sheen replies. “And a pleasure thing.”

Back on the field, the Indians go up three games to none against the White Sox in the American League Championship Series. In continued efforts to sabotage the team, owner Whitton struts into the locker room just prior to Game Four and promptly exploits their insecurities, telling Haysbert “no way you won’t improve on the .138 you’re hitting against Chicago with runners in scoring position” and Sheen “no way you won’t become a sad caricature of yourself in a few short years.”

One strike away from a win, Sheen shakes off the sign from his catcher. Watching at home, Burke mutters, “He’s afraid (to throw) his fastball, possibly because he hurt his shoulder while attempting the entire Kama Sutra just this morning.”

Boom! Home run.

Following the loss, the Indians spiral into self-doubt, poor performance and the belated recognition that this is not a good movie. Just prior to Game Seven, Berenger gives Sheen the ol’ what-for by telling him, “You need to find something within yourself that’s yours and nobody else’s, which is difficult, I realize, since STDs are by nature communicable.”

Game Seven: In the top of the first inning, Epps makes a terrific over-the-shoulder catch while shouting, “Not this time, ectopic pregnancy!” Then in the bottom of the inning, Epps leaps over Sox catcher David Keith to score a run. When he touches the plate, his uniform is dirty. In the next shot his uniform is clean, leaving viewers to think that maybe these movies are edited and that maybe we shouldn’t trust that the outcomes are the honest-to-goodness truth.

INDIANS WIN!

So says the scoreboard after Sheen strikes out Keith on a 102-mph fastball, the pitcher having refused to walk three or even two and a half men. With his mojo restored by the leather vest he wore to the mound, Sheen leaves the on-field celebration to join Burke in the bleachers.

The message, in case anyone missed it, is that Sheen is himself again, or really that he is Rick Vaughn again, or Wild Thing again, but still and always Charlie Sheen. Gazing into Burke’s eyes, Sheen asks her to go out with him, “maybe for a year, maybe just for an hour.”

Nodding, Burke says, “Whaddya say we start with an hour?”

To which Sheen replies, “Um, usually that’s my line.”