Moneyball | Review
The Oakland Athletics lost three key players with their loss to the New York Yankees at the end of the 2001 season. The A’s general manager, Billy Beane, has the difficult task of assembling a winning team for the 2002 season – difficult because they don’t have the financial freedom to spend millions of dollars on each player like the richer teams do. However, through an unorthodox method the A’s were able to defy their odds and establish a record-breaking 20-win streak (after having an 11-loss streak the same season).
Brad Pitt portrays GM Billy Beane, who used to be a professional baseball player before his current job position. Struggling to find the right players for his 2002 season team, Beane confides in a recent Yale graduate, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), in helping him form a competitive baseball team in the A’s. Brand studied economics at Yale, and he believes baseball scouts should recruit players in a different way than the ones used for the past few decades. Professional baseball scouts tend to choose players based on their appearances, style, and up-front skills, and they pay millions of dollars for these types of players. Brand believes players should be assessed by their on-base percentages. The more players there are on base, the more runs can be made. And the more runs made, the more points are scored.
Billy Beane trusts Brand so much in his non-traditional approach to baseball because of his past history with baseball. When Beane was a teenager he was recruited to play major-league baseball, and as a result he had to turn down his full-ride to an ivy league college. Beane’s professional career in baseball proved to be less than stellar, however, as his highly-praised baseball prowess failed in professional games.
‘Moneyball’ is a true story based on the biographical book ‘Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game’, and adapted to the big screen by screenwriters Aaron Sorkin (‘The Social Network‘) and Steven Zaillian (‘Schindler’s List’). Like ‘The Social Network’, ‘Moneyball’ features lengthy and surprisingly-involving conversations between its characters. The dialogue spoken in the film are fast-paced, insightful, and and even funny at times. Sorkin’s overwrought writing style is always a plus for his films, and ‘Moneyball’ isn’t an exception.
The film has a lot of talent involved, not just in its screenplay. ‘Moneyball’ is directed by Academy Award-nominated Bennett Miller (‘Capote’), and he’s joined by ‘Capote’-star Philip Seymour Hoffman (‘Synecdoche, New York’), who portrays the Oakland Athletic’s manager, Art Howe. Jonah Hill (‘Get Him to the Greek’) is fine as the nerdy and calculative Peter Brand. But most importantly, Brad Pitt does a terrific job at portraying the central character of Billy Beane. The character is a struggling single-father who is facing against everyone else in professional baseball, and is at risk of losing his job. Pitt admirably depicts the stress of Beane’s life, and the great conflicts he endures.
‘Moneyball’, like its subject, is not a traditional baseball movie. This isn’t the usual sports film about the struggles of its players and winning the championships. This is a film about the behind-the-scenes of baseball, about the managerial aspect of the sport, and about how a man defied all odds and all critics to change the way people viewed baseball. Sure, baseball is still, for the most part, played the same way its been played for the past century. But professional baseball scouts are also implementing the sabermetric approach pioneered by Beane, and are thriving because of it.
Three out of four Kents.
Extra Notes:
I really like the main theme song for ‘Moneyball’. It’s played in the trailer for the film, and also played frequently throughout the actual film.
‘Moneyball’ has received widespread critical acclaim. Like, really, really, really good and outstanding reviews. But I didn’t find it as amazing as it’s claimed to be (hence my good, but not great 3-star rating of the film). However, I cannot have a definite opinion on the film because when I saw it I was extremely hungry, so all I thought while watching it was “Hurry up and end already!” And that went on during the film’s entire two-and-a-half hour run-time. It was a miserable experience that most probably affected my appreciation of the film.
