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Friday, September 23, 2011

MOVIE REVIEW
Moneyball
Making Winners The Old Fashioned Way: Earning Them


Brad Pitt as Oakland A's baseball general manager Billy Beane in "Moneyball", directed by Bennett Miller.  Sony Pictures

by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        FOLLOW                                            TWEET
Friday, September 23, 2011

Michael Lewis' funny, insightful book Moneyball leaps to life courtesy of writers Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin in director Bennett Miller's same-titled and wonderful new film, which opened today across the U.S. and Canada.

The sports teams with the most toys generally win but not always, and before becoming general manager of Major League Baseball's Oakland A's Billy Beane played the game.  He had talent and ability, but didn't quite make it to the big time.  Mr. Beane later used the philosophies and lessons of his playing days and reinvigorated the A's, building on a much smaller pay scale and fashioning a winning team, one that would routinely win more games than most big-money franchises.  "Moneyball" is a story of the haves and have-nots, but Mr. Miller's film really isn't about baseball.  Economics, politics and opportunity are the film's intersecting formulas, and baseball is merely the theater stage on which they play out.

Mr. Beane (Brad Pitt) loves the game, but he loves what makes sense even more, and as a business man he throws out the bottom line and looks at the intangibles of talent and ability, while selling rival general managers more coveted players as assets to the chagrin of A's manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman, great in a more or less thankless role.)  The film begins with a quote from baseball legend Mickey Mantle and clips of the most-moneyed Goliath of them all: The Yankees, who had fallen behind the A's in a playoff series in 2001.  You needn't be an economist to know that money wins that series.

"Moneyball" is an accessible, universal film about making dreams come true from the heart.  Its emotional undercarriage is father-daughter affection and love that brings an intimate, independent feel to this Hollywood film.  Mr. Miller brought similar intimacy and tidy scale to another larger-than-life figure, Truman Capote, in "Capote", with Mr. Hoffman, and "Moneyball" is disciplined and never cautious about the areas it explores.  Full of camaraderie, tension, wit and fine shot-making, "Moneyball" is a timeless film that pieces together documentary, fairy-tale true story stories born of "Natural"-esque proportions, great shot-making, and the stubbornness and critical thinking of a man who sticks to the purity of principal, money-be-damned. 

In some ways "Moneyball" evokes films of the early 1970s, and Mr. Pitt, solid here in a charismatic and snarky performance, looks like Robert Redford (note the photo above) in this film.  As the Notorious Mr. Beane, Mr. Pitt rankles, scoffs and raises ire, capturing a volatile, frustrated but persistent man whose pain is hidden behind defeats on and off the field.  Beane says he can't watch his teams's ball games but in truth he really can't afford to relive the pain of his own failed career on the field. 

Mr. Pitt, much like Matthew McConaughey in "The Lincoln Lawyer" earlier this year, is seen in "Moneyball" with some of his vanity stripped away, and to an extent greater than the actor himself normally does.

Notably, Jonah Hill is very good as Mr. Beane's number-crunching, cyber-metrics guy going up against an old boys' baseball scout club steeped in tradition and conservatism.  Affable, dutiful and lovable in the role of Peter Brand, a Harvard economics major, Mr. Hill is beginning to show that he's more than a geeky face made for gross-out comedies.  His talents run far deeper, and in serious films like "Cyrus" and now "Moneyball", he's a priceless and important figure in an impressive, warm-hearted feel-good movie.

With: Robin Wright, Chris Pratt, Stephen Bishop, Tammy Blanchard, Jack McGee, Ken Medlock, Brent Jennings, Nick Searcy, Casey Bond, Vyto Ruginis.

"Moneyball" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for some strong language.  The film's duration is two hours and 13 minutes.

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