Moneyball (12A.)
Directed by Bennett Miller.
Starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt, Stephen Bishop, Robin Wright. 133 mins
Moneyball is a sports film, a baseball film, which is to say it is an underdog tale. It’s also a star vehicle/ based on a true story/ underdog sports movie. All of which should mean that you know exactly where the film is going and how it will get there. But this is not your usual sports movie.
For a start it’s an underdog film where the underdog isn’t necessarily that likeable. In 2001 Pitt is the general manager of the Baseball team with the lowest budget of any in the major league. After overachieving the previous season he sees his three best players get sold on to richer teams. In desperation he turns to computer and statistics nerd Jonah Hill who has come up with mathematical formula for evaluating a player’s worth.
Of course all the old baseball scouts react with hostility – Hill is an outsider and his equations can’t match their hard earned wisdom and insight. It’s like Alan Hanson’s wary jousting with Adrian Chiles in the early days of Match of the Day 2 – this is a football show for football people, you’re not one of us. Professional sports people guard their prejudices and routines like they are Yoda-like pearls of gnomic wisdom: “win nothing with kids, will you.”
But they have a point – the pair are taking all the fun out of it. Moneyball is remarkable for what it leaves out. There’s next to no baseball. Pitt refuses to watch the games and the film largely follows his stand. Its domain is the locker rooms and offices under the stands. Most of the film’s baseball action is footage of the real life Oakland Athletics.
Indeed so much is left out that, although I was gripped by the movie, it was often hard to know what exactly I was enthralled by. It must be Pitt, because there is little else but Pitt in the movie. Moneyball is a one man show that has a supporting cast. While Hill at least gets to sit opposite him in a number of scenes, Hoffman and Wright are little more than extras. Having had the dance floor cleared, Pitt does put on a hell of a show, funny and charismatic.
This baseball tale may well mystify British audiences but it gets the mathematics of sport right. Most sports film concentrate on the great moments, the glory, the bits that make up maybe 1% of the experience, if you’re lucky. Moneyball understands that ultimately the glory isn’t what it is about; it’s the slog that makes it all worthwhile.
Directed by Bennett Miller.
Starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt, Stephen Bishop, Robin Wright. 133 mins
Moneyball is a sports film, a baseball film, which is to say it is an underdog tale. It’s also a star vehicle/ based on a true story/ underdog sports movie. All of which should mean that you know exactly where the film is going and how it will get there. But this is not your usual sports movie.
For a start it’s an underdog film where the underdog isn’t necessarily that likeable. In 2001 Pitt is the general manager of the Baseball team with the lowest budget of any in the major league. After overachieving the previous season he sees his three best players get sold on to richer teams. In desperation he turns to computer and statistics nerd Jonah Hill who has come up with mathematical formula for evaluating a player’s worth.
Of course all the old baseball scouts react with hostility – Hill is an outsider and his equations can’t match their hard earned wisdom and insight. It’s like Alan Hanson’s wary jousting with Adrian Chiles in the early days of Match of the Day 2 – this is a football show for football people, you’re not one of us. Professional sports people guard their prejudices and routines like they are Yoda-like pearls of gnomic wisdom: “win nothing with kids, will you.”
But they have a point – the pair are taking all the fun out of it. Moneyball is remarkable for what it leaves out. There’s next to no baseball. Pitt refuses to watch the games and the film largely follows his stand. Its domain is the locker rooms and offices under the stands. Most of the film’s baseball action is footage of the real life Oakland Athletics.
Indeed so much is left out that, although I was gripped by the movie, it was often hard to know what exactly I was enthralled by. It must be Pitt, because there is little else but Pitt in the movie. Moneyball is a one man show that has a supporting cast. While Hill at least gets to sit opposite him in a number of scenes, Hoffman and Wright are little more than extras. Having had the dance floor cleared, Pitt does put on a hell of a show, funny and charismatic.
This baseball tale may well mystify British audiences but it gets the mathematics of sport right. Most sports film concentrate on the great moments, the glory, the bits that make up maybe 1% of the experience, if you’re lucky. Moneyball understands that ultimately the glory isn’t what it is about; it’s the slog that makes it all worthwhile.
