This is a film about drunken softball-playing slobs whose primary asset is Howard Stern's bumptious sidekick, Lange. His name is above the title as a warning, like posting a skull and crossbones outside a toxic-waste site.

But even armed with that expectation, you may be surprised at just how rancid and bilious Beer League manages to be. It's a film that starts out gross and then goes precipitously downhill.

Lange plays Artie DeVanzo, an unemployed 35-year-old who lives with his screwy mother (Laurie Metcalf). Like a dissolute lawn-boy statue, Artie always has a beer can in hand and a cigarette dangling from his lip.

When he's not in bed or in the bar, he plays on a ragtag slow-pitch softball team in North Jersey with his pals Maz (Ralph Macchio), Johnny (Jimmy Palumbo), and crusty old Dirt (Seymour Cassel).

The idea is to establish this crew as lovable losers, but Beer League overshoots the mark by several miles, resulting in the longest foul ball in B-movie history.

Inevitably, the bad news bums decide that against all odds they have a shot at the league championship. Suddenly, these out-of-shape bozos are playing like the 1975 Cincinnati Reds.

Artie finds his soul mate in Linda (Cara Buono). You know it's true love when Linda wakes up a snoring Artie to remonstrate, "That was the worst sex I ever had."

Despite the fact that it looks as if it cost $64 to make, Beer League includes cameos from Jim Breuer, Joseph Gannascoli (gay Vito on The Sopranos), and Tina Fey. Wow, talk about slumming.

Produced by Artie Lange and Anthony Mastromauro, directed by Frank Sebastiano, written by Lange and Sebastiano, photography by David Phillips, music by B.C. Smith, distributed by Echo Bridge Entertainment.

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