The Game of Numbers

Rating: 7/10 (6 February 2012)

Moneyball came out of left field for me (har, har) and surprisingly became one of my favorite films for 2011. I say surprisingly because I've never been a fan of sport films in general, and in particular I know very little about baseball, living as I do in a country where it's much less popular than sports like soccer, basketball, tennis etc. However Moneyball proved easily to be more than a mere sport film or a baseball movie. Though it has a lot of elements familiar from the 'underdog team wins against all odds' school of sport movie, that's not the center of the story.
Unlike Bennett Miller's previous movie, Capote, which relied on one very strong performance to cover for a weak script, here Aaron Sorkin's wit is easy to spot in the excellent screenplay, and though Brad Pitt does deliver a solid performance - one of his most subtle and understated - he doesn't steal the show. He does overshadow the rest of the cast, including Jonah Hill who makes an impressive foray into serious drama which, unfortunately, falls to clichés as the film goes on, and the wonderful Philip Seymour Hoffman whose performance is good but almost too understated to work.
Moneyball is an effective movie, skillfully directed and very well paced, that manages to stay interesting throughout its over-two-hours run. It gets extra points for being communicative enough to allow a non-baseball fan to enjoy it and understand what's going on, though it loses some for not quite succeeding in showing just how important Beane's contribution to the sport was. Definitely worth a watch.