For the billions who find baseball boring

Rating: 9/10 (18 December 2011)

For the several billions of people who find baseball the most boring sport in history, this film very cleverly and with grace shows how baseball was made even more boring, using science. Brad Pitt, really, the entire cast is very good, very good. Brad Pitt could do a movie about the making of the first cereal box and it would probably be great. Brad Pitt as the leading character takes us inside the psyche of a very unique manager of corporate assets, which is what a baseball team is at the bottom line. The dedicated dinosaurs he must contend with are expertly played by a great cast, they seem like real sports managers, and perhaps they are. Hoffman does a great job of acting as an immovable object, and he does it with a minimalist approach that is really convincing and artful. In the end the boring sport of baseball plays back field to dreamers pushing at their dream against formidable forces of public opinion, corporate pressure and certain failure. The story transcends the sport of baseball and shows us what might happen when we open up to change and stand our ground. On a good day, Mickey Mantle would have approved, which is probably why the film opens quoting the legendary ball player.