Moneyball
Dir: Bennett Miller
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Columbia Pictures
133 Minutes
Perhaps more than any other sport, baseball has been immortalized in the movies as a metaphor for everything from the American Dream to an analogue for a fractured family. From Robert Redford busting out the lights in The Natural (1984) to the Dominican star who failed to fulfill his glove dreams in Sugar (2008), baseball is a cruel mistress on the screen. Just ask Kevin Costner’s perpetual minor-leaguer in Bull Durham.
Baseball is called up to bat again in Bennett Miller’s Moneyball, adapted from Michael Lewis’ 2003 book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by dream team Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian. But rather than focus on the nail-biting ninth inning or the bonds of brotherhood in the locker room, Moneyball is concerned about something not usually associated with baseball: math.
Unlike the NBA, professional baseball has no salary cap. This means a team with deeper pockets will likely always outbid smaller market teams. In the early part of the ’00s, the Oakland A’s were a scrappy bunch of players, holding their own against larger market teams despite having a payroll that equaled only a fraction of what the big boys such as the New York Yankees could shell out. But between the 2001 and 2002 series, marquee names Johnny Damon, Jason Isringhausen and Jason Giambi all flew the free agency coop to play for teams that could pay them much more, leaving GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) with three gaping holes and very little money to attract the players to Oakland.
This is where the mathematics comes in. During a trade meeting in Cleveland, Beane meets and steals away assistant Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale graduate who has designed a computer-assisted analysis system that proves you don’t necessarily need star power to win games. Beane, a failed major leaguer himself, buys it. No one else does, including A’s manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who thinks the GM has flipped his lid. Cue the tug-of-war of wills as Beane brings in cast-offs such as Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt)- a career catcher with a bum arm who has never played another position to play first base- and aging former star David Justice (Stephen Bishop), a player so banged-up that the Yankees pay the A’s part of his salary just so they can take him off their hands. This may sound a lot like Major League, but Moneyball and Beane are deadly serious about their plan. There are no sophomoric jokes here. There’s too much on the line.
If all this sounds eye-rollingly boring, think again. Just like he did with that Facebook movie from last year, Sorkin (along with Zaillian), weaves a world where the dialogue crackles and creates a David vs. Goliath dichotomy that will have you cheering for the upstart A’s no matter your true allegiance (this is coming from a lifelong Phillies fan).
Pitt is excellent as Beane, the superstitious and intractable general manger who refuses to watch the ballgames or compromise his vision of the team. He shades Beane with layers of regret (we are shown the breadth of his own failed baseball career from prospect to bust in a spattering of flashbacks) and still creates a character whose first love is the game. Hill is both restrained and effective as Brand, surprisingly playing straight man to Pitt’s more unhinged Beane. In his few scenes, Hoffman is a hoot as the embittered Howe, the man who hates Beane and refuses to follow his directions on the roster card. Less inspired is Robin Wright in a glorified cameo as Beane’s ex-wife.
Although Steven Soderbergh was originally slated to direct Moneyball, Miller stepped in for his first film since 2005′s much-lauded Capote (also featuring Hoffman). What Miller, his cast and script-writing crew achieve is a minor miracle: a talky movie baseball that is as exhilarating as anything that takes place on the field. Although the film begins to feel its length towards the end, I am willing to forgive an over-stayed welcome for the excitement that came before. As the boys of summer turn their sights to the Fall Classic, Moneyball proves that even within the confines of an unfair game, the little guy can still win sometimes, in both baseball and at the movies.
