I enjoyed, but went to the 20-win game.

Rating: Null/10 (25 September 2011)

OK, I enjoyed this movie, but that may be because I was actually a fan of that team, and remember those players. Obviously there are the events portrayed that didn't happen exactly like it was portrayed in the movie (search Google to find them all- it is a lot). It is interesting because it is a sports movie without a climatic moment (the streak is actually down played in the movie- Scott Hatteberg hitting that home run remains the greatest sports moment I've witnessed personally). Brad Pitt is on the screen nearly the entire movie (much like Cast Away with Tom Hanks). Fortunately, he is enjoyable, and his witty lines are classic. Enough has been said how the movie doesn't really mention Miguel Tejada (MVP), or Barry Zito (Cy Young), while focusing on Scott Hatteberg, Chad Bradford, and Ricardo Rincon.
However, the movie doesn't actually overplay their role in the team. It is mainly about using statistics to get value from players. The A's got a lot of value from Scott Hatteberg It also created the perception that the A's started using this analysis in 2002, and Billy Beane was at risk of losing his job by the fans. In fact the A's had been using this strategy for a few years prior, and by 2002 Billy Beane was considered a genius (his status is currently debated). There wasn't a lot of criticism of Billy Beane on sports radio, mainly because there wasn't a lot of discussion about the A's on sports radio. Oakland fans would never complain about the A's on sports radio, instead they tried to prove that the A's were better than the Giants.
That being said, it is enjoyable movie, but not not great. The climatic point of the movie was underscored- when I watched I though of the moment in Miracle. This time, you get the sense that winning 20 in a row meant almost nothing to Billy Beane, and there is a lot of dead space in the movie. However, as baseball movie about math, and a math movie about baseball, it is is not all that bad.