The business of baseball

Rating: 8/10 (14 September 2011)

There is no question that Moneyball should immediately be elevated to the already crowded upper echelon of baseball movies, but it is really more about business than it is about sport. The storyline is already familiar, and the good thing about it being, as they say, "based on a true story" is that we are spared a Hollywood ending in the form of a 7th game, extra innings victory in the World Series.
Moneyball is a classy production from start to finish. The script is tightly written, the casting is impeccable and the direction is slick and largely unobtrusive. Brad Pitt is competent in a role that doesn't demand too much of an actor. Philip Seymour Hoffman looks every inch (or pound) an old school baseball manager in his exasperated attempt to impose the "right way" of doing things on the hapless misfits he has been given to lead into battle. Stephen Bishop is a remarkably fine David Justice, the former superstar trying to come to terms with the vagaries of ageing and fading acclaim. The real star, though, is Jonah Hill, who, as a precocious young math whiz, and an Ivy League grad to boot, is a fish almost completely out of water amongst the cynical old guard of the baseball world.
It is a fine film, to be sure, but if there is any justice come Oscar time then at least two other films which were also featured this week in Toronto, The Descendants and The Artist, should be the front runners for best picture.