Moneyball

2011, 12, Directed by Bennett Miller
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright

If there’s one thing you can count on from a sports movie it’s that if events away from said sport prove lacklustre, there’s always the action of a respective match itself to fall back on… Not in Moneyball, the Brad Pitt starring and produced sports movie for the thinking (wo)man. Adapted from Michael Lewis’ book of the same name by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, Moneyball provides the story of Billy Beane, a former baseball player turned general manager who attempts to embrace the dire financial situation of his Oaklands Athletics team by moulding a team around players who look far better on paper than on pitch. Pitt takes centre stage as Beane, an assertive, charismatic yet unnatural leader who takes the game maybe that bit too personally, but never lets it get in the way of being a good father to his daughter. Listening to the highlights of matches past as he drives, you can only glimpse just how much the Oaklands mean to Beane. His contention with the old-school crew who believe his somewhat inane tactics to be some sort of baseball sacrilege, pit(t)s his driven determination in such a way that you can’t help but feel the guy is setting himself up for a giant fall. Therein lies where Moneyball compensates – in a gargantuan way – to the uncharacteristic absence of actual sport action. For here we have a character study under the guise of a baseball drama.

 The backstage politics of the sport are where attention is paid, and Capote director Bennett Miller skilfully shows how, every now and then, these moments may just be as tense as a closely-scoring match: a scene where the transfer window is on the verge of closing and Beane, together with assistant general manager Peter Brand - played by Jonah Hill, crucially reserved in what is destined to be his wisest possible career move – barters various other managers in order to draft in a key player; as they wait for a phone call response, clock ticking down, the heart rate will increase.

This emphasis does mean that characterisation of the baseball players we hear so much about are left somewhat unexplored, delegating them screen-time almost as an afterthought. Similarly, the key support – Hill, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Oaklands coach Art Howe– teeter on being underused, however it is compensated by Miller’s direction being cleverly led by the talent on display, elevating Mr Pitt to a standard he has oft reached and has now become comfortable with. He can add yet another marvellous performance to his more increasingly varied filmography – and one that would totally justify awards recognition at that. For a film that places emphasis on statistics and figures as opposed to home runs and countless cliches, it has to be said that Moneyball swings it out of the park.

4/5