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Title: Moneyball
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there are a couple uses of the f-word but not much else. Recommended for ages 13 and up. |
“There are rich teams, and there are poor teams; then there is 50 feet of crap. And then there’s us,” says general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) in the new film “Moneyball.” He's describing the gap between winning major league teams and the Oakland A’s. Sitting in a board meeting, he deals with the dilemma of losing their three best players bought by other teams with the promise of bigger paychecks. They immediately start looking at other “up and coming” stars, deciding which one of these players would be best to throw a lot of money at. Beane leans back and sighs in frustration. He knows what the board cannot see and we've noticed not even five minutes into this film; the issue of whom to spend your money on is not the issue, and approaching your plan of attack from this direction will not save them.
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Beane was once a young kid who was headed to college on a full ride scholarship before he was drafted by the New York Mets to play professional baseball. He took their money and discovered first hand that once he didn't become the superstar the owners wanted, his bright future went down the drain. He doesn't resent this choice so much as he regrets it, but living through this he also learned one thing; if throwing lots money at him didn't produce a great player, what’s to say that same strategy isn't failing them now? This is the dilemma at the core of “Moneyball.”
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While money may buy success, there are ways to get the same amount of success at only a fraction of the cost. To accomplish this, he devises a new team assembly strategy with a young kid named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale economics graduate who just happens to apply his math skills to baseball. He points outthat you don't always need “the whole package” in a player. A player with an individual specialty working together with a team of players with their specialties would result in the same effect.
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I watched this movie and listened to all this with a certain level of keen interest. I've never been much of a sports fan. I consider baseball to be the ultimate offender of boredom. Even Homer Simpson once laminated, “You know...when I was drunk I never realized how boring this game is.” I don't know about you, but there's always been something strange to me about a game that only works well when the batter hits the ball, but the entire game the pitcher is trying to ensure this doesn't happen. I've given passing grades to movies about baseball, but more for what was happening around the game itself. “Moneyball” explores the game and immerses itself in the strategies, frustrations, and low points of the game. And for once...I got it. If there is one great victory “Moneyball” has to offer, it is that it makes sense of a game that is understood by many and lost on a few. For those few, you may actually care about the game itself more than the people who are acting in it.
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This film also delves into the reality that the teams with the bigger pocketbooks can just buy their way to victory by offering the best players in the world tons of money to play for them. What Beane and Brand accomplish in their strategy to get a championship team for a fraction of the cost is nothing short of revolutionary. And so long as the A's manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) doesn't let his pride get in the way while managing the team, the strategy just might work.
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Aside from the game itself though, the movie does take time to develop Billy Beane as a complex man who has to manage his feelings and work ethic. He doesn't mingle with the players because he might have to fire some of these people one day. His marriage didn't work out for reasons that are left unexplained, but you get the sense he blames himself for that one. Regardless though, he shakes off his problems and gets to work on the future. He has no time for wallowing in self pity.
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The film was directed by Bennett Miller, who directed the Academy Award winning film “Capote.” Unlike that film, Miller directs “Moneyball” with more reality than art, so the movie looks like a news story you'd see on ESPN. Yet he paces this movie similar to that of “Capote,” slowly, carefully, and just right. The story moves neither too fast nor too slowly. He directs the baseball scenes with natural beauty so that you can truly appreciate how the game works. His cast is brilliantly effective because of their subdued behavior. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill in particular are so good in their roles, you may forget that they are mostly known for playing good-looking action heroes and stoned out fat boys (respectively). “Moneyball” is a first rate movie about America's favorite pastime that earns its right to be about that. It has a love for baseball that is unrivaled and shows those who might not love the game what there is to love about it. It's got a great script for those who just love solid dramas. I've seen many sports films in the past, but “Moneyball” is the best movie about the actual game of baseball I've ever seen.
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