Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

Brad Pitt hits a triple with Moneyball and then unexpectedly steals home. His Billy Beane strides through the National Pastime like a corporate buccaneer – smart, swaggering, fun – before receiving a surprising comeuppance from his daughter, a child of divorce. Together the personal and professional sides of the Oakland As general manager – Home & Away in baseball parlance – inform a crisply winning movie.

Moneyball depicts the game-changing use of statistical analytics to assemble professional sports teams. As if that’s not smart enough, the movie includes plenty of snappy dialog, courtesy of “You can’t handle the truth” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.

Its swagger comes from a stellar Pitt performance, and from a generous helping of macho alpha males, courtesy of professional baseball. Into this mix gets thrust Jonah Hill’s endomorphic geek, the kind of guy picked last on the ball-field. His journey to hang with the Major League jocks adds to the movie’s charm.

The fun comes from several light LOL moments and the fact that the As became record-breaking winners under Billy Beane’s ministrations. No they didn’t win a World Series, but they did break the all-time consecutive wins record, which ain’t exactly chopped liver, and is played extremely well in the movie.

While Moneyball overplays Billy Beane’s early athletic promise, it deftly uses his winsome daughter to highlight the stakes in his professional gamble and to humanize him, stealing home along the way.

Box Score: Moneyball is a sure winner for movie fans in general and Brad Pitt fans in particular. For baseball fans, it flirts with perfection. Is there a more complete baseball movie? Statistically unlikely.

Acting - Really Great 4.5

Brad Pitt swaggers standing still, saying nothing. Cocksure becomes him, especially now that his acting has long since caught up to his Adonis good looks. The camera still loves him, of course. Hell, his mug is more interesting than ever given how his forty-something eyes show the miles.

We’re used to seeing Jonah Hill as an overbearing fool, so he’s a pleasant surprise as an introspective geek. Note that his Peter Brand is the movie’s one fictional character, swapped in when Paul DePodesta – the real brains behind Beane – decided he didn’t want to be part of the movie.

Art Howe – the manager of the As – is long and lean. Phillip Seymour Hoffman – who plays him – isn’t. He is however a superior actor who last played Truman Capote for Moneyball director Bennett Miller. Gay Writer to Gruff Jock isn’t too far to travel for one of the best actors working today.

Half a dozen real baseball scouts create some terrific scenes discussing players. In similar Inside Baseball fashion, professional actor Brent Jennings delivers a perfect rejoinder to one of Billy Beane’s wild-eyed notions. “It’s incredibly hard.” Indeed.

Kerris Dorsey steals home with Brad the Dad. As Billy Beane’s young daughter, she’s a powerful family voice, whether singing Lenka’s The Show or tenderly challenging Papa Pitt. Safe at home!

Film - Great 4.0

The film crackles with repressed energy and sparkles with crisp dialog. However, it falls short of the standard set by The Social Network, another film focused on quantitatively powered professional achievement.

Edge - Tame 1.4

Reality - Glib 1.2

Hollywood movies require that a handsome hero beat the establishment in a single season. Real life Moneyball didn’t play out that way. Its roots predate the season shown in the movie, plus the movie focuses on hitting much more than pitching, let alone fielding. Such oversimplification is necessary for a hit movie, but elides reality.

Allen Barra’s Wall Street Journal article The ‘Moneyball’ Myth goes into more depth.

7 Comments

• BigdaddyDave Oct 31, 2011 8:52PM

  Thank you Wick!

• Snackula Oct 29, 2011 2:49PM

  Hey Wick. I got your email earlier, and of course I promptly deleted it by accident. I did receive the Amazon card. Thank you very much.

• Wick Oct 29, 2011 12:53PM

  Congrats to BigDaddyDave for winning his second ViewGuide review contest, and also to runners up Snackula and MovieGod300. Details Here

• Wick Oct 6, 2011 8:01PM

  Regarding BigdaddyDave’s Review
  Excellent review with some really interesting observations BigD. I think your movie-date warning needs to be heeded by unwary guys.

• Wick Sep 25, 2011 1:11AM

  Regarding Snackula’s Review
  Yeah, the sliders don’t work on iOS. You can edit it next time you’re on a 20th Century computer.

• Snackula Sep 25, 2011 1:04AM

  Regarding Snackula’s Review
  Hey Wick. I, for some reason, couldn’t give the violence rating I wanted via my iPad. The violence is definitely not fierce in the film. I was just trying to acknowledge that there are a couple of moments with Beane’s temper that raise the rating above mild. I’ll figure it out.

• Wick Sep 25, 2011 12:49AM

  Regarding Snackula’s Review
  Solid lead-off Snakula. Well argued and well rated. I just returned from taking it in and was thinking Really Great was probably right for the Summary. Now you’ve confirmed it.

  Not sure how you got to Fierce on the violence however.

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