REVIEW: Moneyball (2011)
Moneyball
Rated: PG-13
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill
My Rating: 4 stars
——
——
In 100 years, the name Billy Beane will be regarded as one of the legends of baseball's past. During the 2002 season, when “Moneyball” takes place, he is baseball's leper.
Beane (Brad Pitt) is the general manager of Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics, a team worth less than $40 million. They've just lost to the New York Yankees, a team worth nearly $115 million, in the 2001 playoffs. Beane must put together a competitive team on a third of the budget and quickly – the A's just lost their three best players – before next season.
He knows he has to think differently about drafting, recruiting and signing players. He just doesn't know how exactly to do it. Peter Brand, a 25-year-old Ivy League graduate who's developed a rogue concept for evaluating players, does. The keys: get on base, don't give away an out, don't steal. Through a complicated algorithm, Brand knows which overlooked players can succeed at a discounted price.
Brand and Beane form an alliance that changes baseball forever, despite all their critics, including within their own organization.
“Moneyball” was a best-selling book about the true story long before it was a darn good movie. The transition to the screen is nearly flawless, guided by Pitt's careful portrayal of a man risking his reputation and livelihood on a far-flung, untested idea.
The raw material presented in the book – the algorithms, especially – doesn't appear on the surface to be easily accessible. But director Bennett Miller wisely chooses to focus his film on the process of and reaction to challenging ideas rather than the numbers behind it.
What results is the first great baseball movie in recent memory. It's a different sort of underdog story, the outcome of which is still playing out. The on-field names – David Justice, Scott Hatteberg and Chad Bradford – give the film a dual feeling of nostalgia for that remarkable 2002 Oakland team and promise for what baseball is still becoming.
It's the sports fan's “The Social Network” – the documentation of a sprouting revolution that we know altered an entire landscape. And it plays as unflinchingly.
Not only is “Moneyball” deeply engrossing, but Pitt churns out another brilliant performance. While Beane is not among his most memorable characters, he's able to put a face to an often faceless position. Unless your last name is Steinbrenner or Epstein, general managers and owners are always in the shadows. We hear only of their hiring and firing. Pitt brings Beane to very real life.
He's a man who knows he'll likely lose his career before he'll change the game. Yet, he's a man that cannot accept losing or mediocrity. That's what pushes him to take the ultimate chance that Brand's ideas are worthwhile.
Perhaps it's also why “Moneyball” resonates so well with an American audience. It is the American dream – to build a champion from rubble and a name from anonymity – achieved behind the scenes of America's pastime.
——
