Review: Moneyball

Plot: Based on the 2003 Michael Lewis book of the same name, Moneyball relates the story of the 2002 Oakland Athletics and their general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt). Facing a MLB system that seems geared toward having only rich teams win, Beane, with the help of assistant GM Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) employs the controversial system of sabermetrics to field a winning team. Along the way Billy battles scouts who believe that mathematical statistics can't create wins, an owner with no money to spare, derisive fans, and the As manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who thinks Beane's system is ridiculous. Yet when a team of misfits and castoffs starts winning, Beane's approach commands the rest of the baseball world to stand up and take notice.

Review: As a fan of the Evil Empire (a New York Yankees fan for those not in the know) I had some doubts going into Moneyball. If the entire two hours was going to consist solely of denigrating teams like the Yankees and complaining about the unfairness of teams with a lower payroll to be unable to win I wanted no part of it.

Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised.

While Moneyball does highlight the disparity between rich and poor baseball teams, director Bennett Miller keeps the main focus on Pitt's character Beane. The result is not so much a docudrama as the story of a man trying to challenge the establishment.

As the movie begins the As have just lost to the Yankees in the 2001 divisional playoffs and lose free agents Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon to richer teams. Not surprisingly money is the issue. With a payroll of only about $40 million how can Oakland hope to compete?

Enter assistant GM Peter Brand (Jonah Hill). After Beane snags Brand away from the Indians, Brand convinces Beane that he shouldn't be buying players but buying wins, and in order to buy wins Beane needs to buy runners. Hill is excellent here as Brand. While the young actor is known more for bombastic roles like Superbad, Hill gives an understated performance that works well in Moneyball. Brand believes in sabermetrics and over time gets Beane to believe too.

What's interesting in Moneyball is how new concepts often get derided by detractors of the establishment. Whether it is Darwin's theory of evolution or Galileo's idea that the Earth revolves around the sun, there are always going to be skeptics who will resist change, sometimes violently. Sabermetrics is no different. Another brilliant screenplay by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and Steven Zallian culls drama out of a seemingly boring idea. But just like sabermetrics somehow it works. At one point in the movie Beane's scouts even point out that Bill James (the creator of sabermetrics) was a night watchman. In other words what the hell does he know about baseball? My rebuttal is what the hell did a Swiss patent clerk named Albert Einstein know about physics?

Moneyball is not without flaws however. The film is about fifteen minutes too long and sometimes the scenes are overly talky. However scenes involving a mid season trade and a confrontation between Billy and his head scout more than make up for that. Mychael Danna's score is also underwhelming at best and while Hoffman is decent as manager Howe, his emotions don't move much beyond surliness and grumpiness.

The real gem in Moneyball is Pitt however. Rather than his recent quirky roles in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Inglorious Basterds, Pitt returns to one of his everyman roles of the early '90s. The result is a passionate and believable performance that is sure to get him another Oscar nomination.

Overall the return on my investment in Moneyball was more than satisfactory.

My rating: 8/10