Masterful 'Moneyball' touches all the bases
The fact-based, underdog sports drama "Moneyball" is so masterfully told that even if you know the real story, you'll still be on cleats and needles anticipating what happens next.
Bennett Miller's movie isn't really about money or baseball per se; it's a fascinating probe into the mindset of Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, a former player who reinvented his failing team and changed the entire game by thinking outside of the batter's box.
We meet Billy (Brad Pitt, who's also the film's producer) in a major slump as his $38 million team loses three major players to the New York Yankees' $120 million team. Billy realizes, as no one else does, that something drastic must be done to turn the A's around.
In a meeting with Cleveland ball executives, Billy's Don Quixote finds his Sancho Panza in a frumpy Yale economics major named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill, an actor who can't turn in a disappointing performance).
Peter uses computers and statistics - not gut feelings and conventional wisdom - to identify undervalued players on the ballfield.
Billy believes in Peter's results-based data to find the players who can get on bases and win games, regardless of their ages, how they look, or if they engage in questionable activities off the field.
Plus, because the players are undervalued, Billy correctly predicts that he can get them for Oakland A's prices, and they'll think it's a fortune.
The major sequence in "Moneyball" has Billy and Peter sitting in an office, wheeling and dealing to get the players they need at the prices they want.
This probably sounds boring.
It's not.
The sharply defined characters constantly engage us.
The dialogue hits like a crack of a bat.
That's because "Moneyball" was written first by Steve Zaillian and then by Aaron Sorkin, the Babe Ruth and Willie Mays of Hollywood screenwriters.
Zaillian wrote and directed the superbly wrought "Searching For Bobby Fischer," which took us into the mind of a child chess prodigy, and we didn't need to know anything about the game to follow the story.
Sorkin wrote "The Social Network," that took us into the mind of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. And we didn't need to know anything about computers to follow.
We don't need to know much about baseball in "Moneyball" to get swept up in Billy's life, and how he turned a failed tour of duty for the New York Mets into a trailblazing career as a testy, smart general manager.
"Moneyball" comes from a 2003 book by a former Salomon Brothers bond trader named Michael Lewis, and it's about how necessity forced Billy and Oakland A's to take a (literally) calculated risk in revamping the rules.
I don't want to oversell "Moneyball." The movie never really grabs you by the lapels. But it quietly holds on to them - firmly - for 133 minutes.
Pitt's performance as Billy is an egoless portrait of a regular guy with a bad haircut who keeps his public persona tight, and only lets his inner insecurities out when safely within the confines of a car.
The scenes between Pitt and Kerris Dorsey as his young daughter Casey supply the humanizing moments that give the pugilistic general manager humanity and groundedness. (Dorsey's sweet rendition of Lenka's song "The Show" is irresistibly touching and gives the movie an appealing "Juno" quality.)
The interplay between the strong-willed Billy and the insecure, withdrawn Peter plays like a low-key comedy routine as the two men struggle to find common ground and get into an efficient, comfortable groove.
The ending? Although the film borrows a little from "The Natural," director Bennett Miller didn't want the cliched slow-motion victory ending from most sports films.
Instead, the game-clincher is to be found in the word crawl on the silver screen at the end of the story.
Just like Billy Beane, "Moneyball" thinks outside the batter's box.
Way outside.
<b>“Moneyball”</b>
★ ★ ★ ★
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Robin Wright, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Directed by: Bennett Miller
Other: A Columbia Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for language. 133 minutes