Moneyball Review [2]

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 09.25.2011

Can Brad Pitt show me the money?

Directed by Bennett Miller
Written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin
Cinematography by Wally Pfister
Music Composed by Mychael Danna

Cast
Brad Pitt ... Billy Beane
Jonah Hill ... Peter Brand
Philip Seymour Hoffman ... Art Howe
Robin Wright ... Sharon
Chris Pratt ... Scott Hatteberg
Stephen Bishop ... David Justice
Brent Jennings ... Ron Washington
Casey Bond ... Chad Bradford
Nick Porrazzo ... Jeremy Giambi
Kerris Dorsey ... Casey Beane
Arliss Howard ... John Henry

Runtime: 133 min
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some strong language
Official Website



I have heard some film critics call Moneyball this year’s The Social Network. I can see where the similarities could be found because both movies are about a character taking a new look at an existing problem and helping craft something new out of it. In The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg took the idea of social interaction and redefined it for the new computer age. In Moneyball, the movie presents Billy Beane perfecting a way to field a baseball team in a small market that can help them compete with the large market big money powerhouses. Both movies take the facts of the real life stories and embellish them with fiction in order to create an entertaining movie. No offense to David Fincher, who I pretty much worship, but Moneyball is a better movie than The Social Network.

Moneyball is based on the novel by Michael Lewis and is written by Aaron Sorkin, the man who also scripted The Social Network. The basis of the movie is the magical 2002 season of the Oakland A’s, a team that survived the gutting of their franchise despite the losses of Jason Giambi, Jason Isringhausen and Johnny Damon. The movie supposes that general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) went out and found a whiz-kid in Cleveland who came in and taught him how to judge baseball talent by using statistics instead of blind faith in scouts. Beane was sold because he was told he was a sure thing by these same scouts and failed to impress over his career. As a matter of fact, thousands of kids are told they will be the next big things by scouts and fail, which proves the process is flawed.

What I just described in the last paragraph is what the movie presents. Not all of it is true. It was not a whiz kid from Cleveland who taught Beane about sabermetrics. Beane learned it from Sandy Alderson, the GM who was in Oakland before Beane moved up the ladder. The process was already being used in 2001 when Oakland lost in the playoffs and it did not “start” in 2002, as the movie shows. Guess what? It doesn’t matter because this is not a documentary, it is a movie that uses the real events as a backdrop for a good story.

Make that a great story.

Billy Beane is stressed out because he has no payroll to replace the high priced players that are bolting from Oakland to play in New York and Boston. He can’t even trade for great players because he can’t afford those salaries. That is when he meets a kid named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who clues him in that if you get a certain amount of runs in a season, you will win enough games make the playoffs. This is common sense. But, in the war room at the clubhouse, the scouts are talking about who has the prettiest swing and the best looking girlfriends. See, if you have an ugly girlfriend, you have no confidence. If that isn’t flawed thinking, what is? So, Beane gives into Brand’s sell and starts to sign players no one else is looking at because he knows those players can either get on base a lot or give up very few runs.

There is little shown outside of the clubhouse and that works great for a movie whose main character is the sport of baseball. Occasionally, we see Beane with his daughter, proving that he has something outside of the sport that grounds him. The moments with his daughter always ring true and gives the character a heartbeat away from baseball, reminding him of what's really important. That is not always needed because Brad Pitt is spectacular in the role. He plays it with a calm, laid back coolness that makes him easy to cheer for. He is seconded by Jonah Hill in what is a tremendous performance for the young actor. Hill normally plays the blundering comic relief but, in this movie, he is an insecure, uneasy boy in a man’s world and it might be the best performance I have seen from him. He does provide comic relief in the movie at points but it is always due to his reaction to uneasy circumstances.

Here is what is most impressive about the movie. The studio wanted it to be an inspirational sports movie but it focuses on a baseball team that lost in the playoffs again. Director Bennett Miller was able to give audiences the inspirational sports movie moment while keeping the movie true to the source material. The Oakland A’s broke the major league record with 20 consecutive wins that year, so that is where Miller provided his inspirational, audience pleasing moment.

One player that the movie focused on was Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt), a former catcher who wasn’t given a chance by anyone but Billy Beane. Beane demanded that Hatteberg be allowed to play and traded the team’s all-star first basemen to make sure the player got his chance. Hatteberg is the man who gives the movie its inspirational moment that provides the crowd pleasing experience. The game where the record was broke is masterfully constructed. The action mixed with the reactions and the perfect control of sound effects creates what is one of the most exciting moments you can see in a sport’s movie.

However, the best sport’s movies are the ones where the good guys don’t always win. Friday Night Lights finished with the good guys losing. Rocky ended with Apollo picking up the victory over our hero. These movies did not tack on fake happy endings just to send the audience home happy. They showed the loss but then added something extra. These movie moments make people realize they just watched something real but, it's okay because the story warranted it. Moneyball ends with one of those moments.

It is not a spoiler because history shows that Oakland lost that year in the playoffs. Beane admits that records don’t matter because, if you don’t win your last game, people will turn on you. Announcers blasted Beane for his strategy early in the season. When the team began to win, they credited the manager. When the record was broke, they praised the team. When Oakland lost in the playoffs, they said Oakland was never that good to begin with. That is the life of a sports franchise. People turn on you in a second.

However, what makes the movie great is that, even after the team lost, our protagonist was okay with it in the end. Sure, losing is horrible but Beane got a chance to leave the small market for the bigger cities and chose to stay in Oakland, the team he loved and the team that gave him a chance. Billy Beane did not win but that was okay. That is the point of this movie. There is a scene where Peter shows Billy a clip from another game that proved that it wasn't just about winning and losing and Beane finally got it. Sports radio may not care but there is a romanticism to the game that is not about winning or losing. This movie shows those moments.

Beane helped revolutionize the sport. He didn’t invent sabermetrics but he proved it could work. Boston used it and won a World Series. Florida used it and made it to the World Series. Tampa Bay used it and made it to the World Series. That information is given during the closing credits to show the results of his hard work, to make it crystal clear this was not a failed experiment.

No, Moneyball is not an exact replication of the 2002 Oakland season. There are some things that are added and eliminated due to the fact that this is a movie. Steven Soderbergh wanted to make it more accurate, using real player interviews in an unconventional style and was fired for it. I am interested in seeing how that might have turned out. As it is, Moneyball is a fantastic sport’s movie, with some great action, some wonderful clubhouse scenes and pitch perfect acting from Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. It’s not a documentary about the history of the sport. But It is a great movie.

The 411: Moneyball uses the 2002 Oakland A’s season as a backdrop to present audiences with one of the best sport’s movies they will see this year. It has the highs and lows you expect from the genre and features a great script by Aaron Sorkin, who is working at the top of his game. It also features great performances by both Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill and, technically, is one of the best looking movies I have seen, and heard, this year. Don’t expect a biopic here. If you want to see realistic baseball history, go watch Ken Burns’ Basbeall. With this movie, just expect an entertaining and exciting sports movie. It delivers on both counts.

Final Score:  9.0   [  Amazing ]