MONEYBALL

Moneyball (2011)
Grade: C
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt, Ken Medlock, Stephen Bishop, and Kerris Dorsey
PREMISE: Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane seeks to rebuild a struggling team by unconventional methods in order to save the team money.

RATED PG-13 for language

Moneyball features what might be Brad Pitt's best performance. If not his sheer greatest, then, certainly,his most commanding. Playing a fast-talking, fearless man of action, Pitt storms through Moneyball on a mission, doing so with such aplomb that you almost forget that guy with the lined face and the Biebover locks is that Brad Pitt, Ocean's 11's Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie's Brad Pitt. That guy. Pitt's performance (which has earned him an Oscar nomination and has generated whispers of potentially bringing him his first win) is the sole reason to watch Moneyball. I've been impressed by his intensity, his screen presence, and his stature in other films (Legends of the Fall, Se7en, Babel), but this is the diamond in the rough of Pitt's career.

--Pitt, who has to be one of the most recognizable people on earth, even with the aforementioned boyish locks, plays Billy Beane, the still-serving General Manager of Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics. In 2001, the modestly-talented, small-market A's romped through the season, winning 102 games and putting the mighty New York Yankees to the test in the playoffs, though they eventually lost the deciding game of that series. However, as is so often the fate of baseball teams these days that find unexpected success, they were immediately forced to sell their biggest pieces (slugging first baseman Jason Giambi, dynamic outfielder Johnny Damon, strong-armed closer Jason Isringhausen), knowing those men, after the previous season's sucesses, would demand more money, much more than Beane and the A's ownership could afford. Knowing they would suffer these losses, and likely get nothing close in return, Beane and his group of scouts (led by Ken Medlock's stuffy, old-fashioned Grady Fuson) began to look at minor leaguers, college players, and incoming international talents to try and put together a team that could A) appeal to a fan base recovering from losing their three biggest stars, and B) win ballgames.

--However, Beane, once a superstar high school baseball player who passed up a scholarship to Stanford to play in the big leagues, only to have his skills mysteriously erode in an unremarkable career, knows that just guessing-and assuming someone will "develop"-isn't enough. A trip to Cleveland to attempt to get a bargain price for a proven relief pitcher brings him across the path of Peter Brand (a surprisingly meek Jonah Hill), a 25-year-old numbers whiz with an Economics degree from Yale, who nonetheless commands the attention of the Cleveland Indians' entire coaching staff. Impressed with the kid's influence, Beane buys his contract, takes him to Oakland, and finds out what Peter knows, that a number of then-new sabermetrics (percentages, equations, ratios, etc...) could determine a player's potential, as well as separate perceived potential from actual ability. For instance, why not try a hard-hitting catcher (Chris Pratt's Scott Hatteberg) with a bad arm at first base, where his weak arm won't matter? Or why not add proven playoff hero David Justice (Stephen Bishop), even though he's no longer pounding home runs like he once did, and everyone says he's washed up, because he can at least get on base? Billy and Peter's theories are challenged, of course, by everyone from the scouting team to the players themselves to the team's opinionated, old-fashioned manager Art Howe (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), but when the team turns around after a slow start to the 2002 season, everyone starts paying attention. Just how far can this newfangled, numbers-crunching style of evaluating ballplayers-soon nicknamed Moneyball-carry a team in a league where proven production is everything?

--I'm a huge baseball fan, and always have been--I had heard of nearly all the players, many of the coaches, even several of the GMs and team owners, and I remember hearing about the A's' '02 season. Plenty of clips of actual games are shown, and the soundtrack is rife with fast-cutting, overlapping commentary from radio and TV announcers first criticizing, then praising, Beane's moves, and the movie's middle section certainly builds apprehension as all Billy's moves-meant to save the team money by going the less-traveled route in recruiting less-proven/higher-potential athletes-seem to backfire early on, but the movie is long. There are a handful of flashbacks to the young Billy's fledgling career, one scene where he encounters his ex-wife (Robin Wright) and a few where he takes care of his kindly 12-year-old, Casey (Kerris Dorsey), and the film is dragging by the time the key baseball season plot plays out. Even to someone like me, who loves baseball, two and a quarter hours is too long.

--Like I said, if you have to watch it, watch for Pitt. He's a dynamo, absolutely commanding every scene he's in, whether he's butting heads with a team scout, throwing things around the clubhouse to get the team's attention after a lackadaisical effort, and, in one great scene, juggling about six different team heads on three different phones while trying to negotiate terms for a key trade, all the while communicating half-silently with Peter, making sure the numbers say it's the wise choice. It helps that Billy Beane's first name is said so much; you stop thinking Brad Pitt after a while, or at least I did. Rather like his pal (and Ocean's co-star) George Clooney, no one will ever forget-or not realize-that Brad Pitt is in a certain movie, but as he gains experience, he's proving that he can adapt and really get inside a character. It's a tough call--who I'd pick for Best Actor out of Pitt here and Clooney in The Descendants--but I'd give it to Pitt, who effortlessly carries this film.

--Jonah Hill has been nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for his understated performance, and he's solid, effectively-nebbishy for someone who is one of the bigger contemporary names in Hollywood. Hoffman brings his usual intensity to the role of the team's manager, but the role is surprisingly thankless--he only appears in about four scenes. And among the ballplayers, Chris Pratt and Stephen Bishop register convincingly as the self-doubting comebacker and the former golden boy vet, respectively.

--I just don't know what else to say. Brad Pitt is the star of the film, and his performance is solid, but the movie can be slow, and that's saying something if I say it, 'cause I'm a huge baseball fan. Beane's backstory is told with effective poignancy and regret, and the film ends with a haunting musical voiceover by Dorsey as Beane's daughter. But the movie, maybe because it's based on a true story that doesn't end as well as one would like, feels kind of empty. Yes, expectations may have played a role in my lukewarm response (as they did for Descendants), but when I think of Moneyball several hours after watching it, I think of Pitt's enjoyably feisty role, and then only a few other moments even come to mind.

So, do I recommend it?
No. If you absolutely love Pitt, have at it, but Moneyball is overlong and will likely bore anyone who's not a big baseball fan; even actual baseball fans might find themselves bored, considering Beane is not a player but a team manager, and there is little actual game action.

Bottom line (I promise):
Brad Pitt could win an Oscar, but you might be better served just hearing about it. Pic is long, mildly-exciting, and ends on a curiously-flat note.

Moneyball (2011)
Directed by Bennett Miller
Based on the book "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" by Michael Lewis
Written by Steve Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, and Stan Chervin
Rated PG-13 for language
Length: 133 minutes