keeping the faith

Rating: 9/10 (14 June 2015)

Baseball and submarines: American cinema seems to thrive in these two arenas. Baseball may be a minor sport globally, its rules lost on the vast majority of Europeans, Africans and Asians, but in cinema it lends itself perfectly to myth and grand narrative. Pragmatic GM Billy Beane comes across a nerdy Peter Brand who seems to have worked out an algorithm to get the most effective baseball squad for the lowest cost. This is just what the cash-strapped Oakland franchise needs, decides Beane. Philosophy meets strategy in a perfect pairing, as Billy and Peter go to work implementing 'moneyball' with an almost religious zeal. Pitt brings his now taken-for-granted charisma and complexity to Beane. The casting of Jonah Hill is a gamble that pays off as he manages to give Peter a backbone, when it would be all too easy to lampoon this character. And when you have Philip Seymour Hoffman stepping up to play a small but crucial part, then you have a movie that is intriguing and compelling in equal measure. Very few people have the courage to choose a transgressive path, and of those that do, fewer still will stick with it in the face of adversity. A film of quiet determination, with occasionally explosive conflict, it is at all times humane and authentic. One to watch again and again.