Artie Lange's Beer League

Artie Lange's Beer League (also known simply as Beer League) is a 2006 American comedy film directed by Frank Sebastiano and written, produced by, and starring Artie Lange.^[3] Developed from a short film by Lange and shaped around his experiences with New Jersey recreational softball culture, the film was conceived as an intentionally raunchy, R-rated sports comedy aimed at Lange's established fan base.^[4][5][6]

It was released in select theaters on September 15, 2006, in the New Jersey, New York, Cleveland, and Philadelphia areas.^[3] The film received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and was a box-office failure, grossing $472,185 domestically against an estimated budget of $2.8 million.^[7][8]

Artie DeVanzo is an unemployed town drunk who plays softball with his buddies Maz and Johnny for Ed's Bar and Swill. Their arch-rival is Manganelli Fitness, led by Dennis Manganelli. After the teams brawl during the first game of the year, the town's police chief decides whichever team finishes best in the league that season can still play in the league, and whichever team loses is out for good.

Artie lives at home with his mother and can never hold a job or a girlfriend for very long. After a night out with his pals, he ends up at a diner for late night food, where he sees old flame Linda Salvo out with her friends. Artie abandons his friends and starts some small talk with Linda, which results in a one-night stand. At first Linda is disgusted and annoyed that she let herself fall into another meaningless encounter, but Artie decides to actually try to attempt a more meaningful relationship with her.

The Ed's team, traditionally a league doormat, decides to actually practice in an attempt to beat out Manganelli and stay in the league. The regular season is highlighted by Maz's bachelor party and wedding, and Johnny's attempt to bat .700 for the year.

The team charges up the standings to qualify for the championship game against the four-time defending champions from Manganelli Fitness. However, 'Dirt', Ed's Bar and Swill's team pitcher, collapses and dies from a heart attack at practice in the days leading up to the championship. After the funeral, the rest of the team drinks heavily in homage to Dirt before they play in the championship game scheduled for that afternoon.

Manganelli's team quickly builds a 10–0 lead over their inebriated opponents, and that remains the score heading into the final inning of the game. After two outs, the season rests on Artie's shoulders.

Artie proceeds to launch a Manganelli pitch over the fence in left field for a solo home run, an incredibly rare feat that nobody in the league has done "since '89". That shot only makes the score 10–1, but Ed's Bar and Swill comes to life and bats around the lineup in the inning, bringing Artie back to the plate, now with the bases loaded and the score 10–6, though still with two outs.

Artie hits the ball to right field, where nobody is stationed because Manganelli has his fielders playing the "DeVanzo Shift"; completely dead-pull. All three baserunners come home, and as the ball is thrown away, Artie races home in an attempt to tie the score. He and Manganelli have a collision at the plate, but Manganelli hangs on to the ball for the final out and a 10–9 victory.

After the game ends, Artie keeps his vow of not letting Manganelli have the championship trophy, stealing it during the post-game awards ceremony and driving off down Route 120, past Giants Stadium, heading for the Jersey Shore with Linda, talking about other leagues in other towns and how he can still play in them.

Development on the film began in 2001, when Lange and Sebastiano began expanding a 17-minute short film Lange had written, financed, and starred in, titled Game Day, into a feature-length screenplay.^[4] Lange later wrote that the script was complete by 2002 and that financing was ultimately secured for a modest independent production budget.^[4]

In interviews around the film's release, Lange said he and Sebastiano wanted to make an unapologetically vulgar softball comedy in the tradition of Slap Shot and resisted studio interference. He told JoBlo that they wanted to make "our Slap Shot" and waited until someone would let them make the picture "the way we want to make it".^[6] The distributor later retitled the film from 'Beer League' to 'Artie Lange's Beer League' for marketing purposes, which Lange said was done to distinguish it from the then-upcoming comedy Beerfest while still preserving the original title on the film itself.^[6]

Lange described the lead character as a close approximation of himself had he never entered show business.^[5][6] He told Fresh Air that the film's depiction of softball subculture was drawn directly from leagues he had played in, including games in which drinking was routine and fights frequently broke out. He also said particular incidents in the screenplay, including an elderly pitcher trying to kick an opposing player during a brawl, were based on events he had personally witnessed.^[5]

According to Lange's memoir Too Fat to Fish, the stress of mounting the production while continuing his work on The Howard Stern Show and performing stand-up on weekends coincided with a sharp escalation in his substance abuse.^[9] He wrote that during pre-production he was drinking heavily and taking "twenty painkillers a day".^[9]

Lange further wrote that, during one attempt to obtain more pills at a comedy gig, he instead bought heroin, beginning an addiction that lasted from March to June 2005 and caused him to miss casting auditions and pre-production meetings for the film.^[10] After taking several days off from radio in June 2005 to endure withdrawal at home, he wrote that Sebastiano and members of the production staff threatened to cancel the film unless he returned to work.^[11] Lange obtained Subutex from a doctor and resumed production, later writing that principal photography was completed in July 2005 on time and within budget.^[11]

The film screened at the CineVegas Film Festival in June 2006 before its theatrical release.^[12] A July 2006 profile in the Los Angeles Times reported that Lange drew large crowds at the festival and that he was "ecstatic" about the audience response.^[13] In the same article, Lange said he had made the film for a blue-collar audience rather than critics and added, "I never make anything for critics to like. I make it for guys who work construction."^[13]

The film opened theatrically on September 15, 2006, in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Cleveland.^[3][6] Lange told JoBlo before release that the initial rollout was designed to target cities where he and Stern's radio show had a strong following.^[6]

The film was a box-office failure. Figures from Box Office Mojo show the film was released in 164 theaters for 14 days, with an opening weekend gross of $302,908 and a total domestic gross of $472,185.^[14]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 31% of 13 critics' reviews are positive.^[15] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 40 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[16]

A review at Filmcritic.com called the film "a whole lot of lewd potty humor that doesn't really add up to anything substantial" and "a guilty pleasure of sorts when taken in small bursts".^[17] On Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper gave the film a positive review, saying, "Beer League is raunchy and tacky, but it's a hell of a lot funnier than something like Failure to Launch".^[18] Brian Orndorf of eFilmCritic.com gave it a positive review: "Beer League is not for tender ears, but more for the beer-bellied, rascally rule breaker in all of us, and most importantly, there's a great chance something in here will make you laugh".^[19]

Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times wrote that the film "somehow manages to make beer-league softball seem no fun at all in this extremely lowbrow comedy".^[20] Robert Koehler of Variety called it "Sloppy but unconcerned about it" and described it as a throwback to a pre-politically correct strain of male gross-out comedy.^[21] According to Metacritic's review roundup, Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that watching the film was akin to spending a summer day playing softball with friends, "only without the sun, the fresh air, the exercise or the fun", while Lou Lumenick of the New York Post called it the sort of lowbrow sports comedy best enjoyed with "a six-pack, a bucket of wings and a fast-forward button".^[22]

Mark Bell of Film Threat offered one of the film's more enthusiastic notices, calling it "a welcome return to the raunchy hey-day of comedy, a true guy's film".^[23]

• List of baseball films

• Official website
• Beer League at IMDb