Film Review for Moneyball

Film Review for “Moneyball.”


You think it’s possible that you could watch, much less like, a movie about baseball, even if you don’t watch baseball games on TV? Even if you don’t like watching baseball would you watch a baseball movie just because Brad Pitt is starring in it?

Imagine this twist. What if YOU do like baseball, but this movie isn’t necessarily about the game of baseball? Now what?

The movie “Moneyball”, based on a bestseller by Michael Lewis, is such a movie. It leaves you not necessarily knowing what category of movie this falls under, but that’s not a problem.

Moneyball is based on a true story, and it’s a story for anyone who has ever thought of taking on the system. Not as in good versus evil, but the little guy fighting the giant. Brad Pitt stars as the general manager of the Oakland A’s, named Billy Beane. He is the guy that is taking on the system. In Moneyball, Billy Beane has a baseball gut feeling that baseball’s traditional and conventional wisdom is all of sudden wrong. Due to a tight franchise budget, Billy Beane is forced to restructure his team. And now with his own unconventional wisdom, he must think or find a way that he can outsmart and outplay the richer ball clubs around the league by rebuilding his team on the lowest of budgets possible. But Billy, the onetime baseball jock of yesteryear, cannot go at this alone, so he teams up with a not-so-jock looking college grad, Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill) and together form an unlikely partnership to recruit players. The unique thing about their approach is that due to having no money, and the fact that their team’s baseball star has been purchased by the New York Yankees, they go off on a quest to look and acquire bargain players that the scouts have written off as “flawed,” as described by the scouts in the movie. On which here lies the kicker, despite these group of undesirables, due to their lack of star power, they seem to have the ability to get on base. By getting on base, by scoring runs from either hits or excessive walks…it is a technique and a decision that challenges the old school traditions of scouts. By implementing this odd formula that sounds so farfetched, it puts Billy Beane on the sites of those who are accusing him of taking the heart and soul out of the game of baseball. And to tell you how this movie ends, well…it would be like me telling you who wins the game before you even get a chance to watch it.

So then...what is this movie about if it isn’t about a baseball game? It’s about the game not played on the field. It’s the game within the game. And of the script, it’s a well written game. But don’t expect fast past action. It’s actually slow….well, like a baseball game.

The casting is well selected…with seasoned actors such a Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour and Jonah Hill and other character actors you’ve seen around. I just have to mention Jonah Hill, especially since we are not used to watching him play a serious role. The partnership of Hill and Pitt, watching their chemistry, was for me the highlight of the film. Established actor versus the new arrival, the glamour good looks of Brad versus the … well, the looks of Jonah Hill. Age and experience vs. youth. All this sets up the synergy of their combined acting to make this a move of strong acting versus a mere baseball game.

The comedy throughout the movie is minimal, but it exists, perhaps more noticed in the use of sarcasm. Memorable lines such as “There are rich teams and there are poor teams, then there's fifty-feet of crap, and then there's us.” Is probably one of the more catchy lines worth remembering. One on occasion as the mentor is educating the new kid, Billy Beane is telling Peter Brand or better yet, showing him how to fire a player by telling him that he should just deliver the blow. “Would you rather get one shot to the head or five in the chest and bleed to death,” he tells Peter.

What I found interesting about the way this movie is scripted is that even Billy Beane, although the GM, cannot watch the game in person, for fear of jinxing the team. He listens to the game by radio. Perhaps this is symbolic as to the fact that the viewer is not always watching game, but listening to baseball all around the movie itself.

But don’t think Moneyball is not about baseball. It is. There is that crack of the bat you get to see and hear, the frolicking in the locker room, the cheers of the crowd, and the not so powerful star of a player hitting that special homerun. It makes you wanna cheer!

I think it’s a decent movie in its own right, but a bad baseball movie if that is all you are after.

I could have waited to see this movie as a rental but I’m ok with seeing it on the big screen. Could this win as the best movie of the year, I don’t think so. But you decide, go watch it….and have a hotdog while you’re at it.

Batter up!

3 out of 5 jalapeños.