Moneyball (2011)

Based on Michael Lewis' 2003 book Moneyball: The Art Of Winning An Unfair Game, this effective movie version has a smart script, solid direction from Bennett Miller and great performances from all the cast. This true story of Oakland A's Genreal Manager Billy Beane and his unorthodox winning formula is a role that has Brad Pitt on the top of his game. Pitt plays Beane with the smooth assurance of Robert Redford (Pitt has been compared to Redford many times in his career) and the coolness of Paul Newman. Baseball movies have always been a hit and miss (especially in England) but Moneyball is certainly one of the shrewdest takes on the game, as it has appeals that reaches beyond the game of baseball.

Its fair to say that a sports movie of any kind has many marks to hit if it wants to be taken seriously. Not so much clichés, just parts that are essential to make a sports movie work. For example; there must be at least one game in which it seems like the central team will lose everything, but come good in the end. Also, there must be a game in which they seem to have in the bag and then it all goes wrong. You also need to have a cocky player or two who gets taken down a peg or two, and not forgetting the token speech in the locker room. If a sports film didn't have these keys moments, then it would basically suck. Moneyball has all these things which is great. But it actually doesn't show much sport, which makes it even better.


For Moneyball, key members from Social Network (2010) team including producers Scott Rodin and Michael De Luca and Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin reunite to make another true life tale that pays attention to the details and behind-the-scenes manoeuvring. The good new is, not only does Moneyball succeed in taking us on a tour of the business side of Baseball, it humanises the talk between the scouts to keep it from crashing into a sea of statistics. Again, we have to thank Sorkin and original writer Steven Zaillian for keeping their eye on the ball in this story of baseball-obessed kid Billy Beane whose career takes him to the front office. He shocks the baseball world by ditching his star players and hiring replacements that most teams wouldn't look twice at. Credit of his new protocol must go to a Yale-grad named Pete (Jonah Hill) who devises a system that throws at the value of star power for research, cold hard statistics and cheap players. Pete is a very non-athletic type character, and his scenes where he is able to explain his theory to the grizzled veteran coaches are some of the best in the film. But of course the film is about Beane and Miller's direction carefully weaves in the no-nonsense man's struggle to keep his career and personal life together despite a divorce and a job that doesn't let him spend much time with his daughter.

We don't really get to know the players especially well in the film, because they don't really matter. We meet one, to establish that Beane's little experiment is changing the lives of some people, but their personal triumphs is of no interest. What is important is whether Beane and and Pete's gamble pays off, whether they can prove to numerous old men of the game that new thinking can work.

Pitt has stuck with this movie through several directors (Steven Soderbergh and David Frankel both came close to making it) and several years of studios being unsure whether the film would sell or not. His persistence has paid off handsomely and his performance is of one that will surely be one of the big plus points in an already glittering career. Jonah Hill is his perfect counterpart, deadpanning and underplaying at every turn. Pitt and Hill certainly make a good pair, with Hill proving he can do more than just comedy. Philip Seymour Hoffman is also perfectly cast as the manager who clearly doesn't want things to change.

I can see Moneyball being one of the great sports film in recent times (especially if you're a baseball fan). For everyone else, it's simply a very entertaining film.