"They Get On Base"

Rating: 7/10 (2 March 2012)

I have to admit that Moneyball is one unique baseball film. Usually films are about players like Lou Gehrig, Grover Cleveland Alexander, or Dizzy Dean to name three of the most successful players that successful films were made about. But our protagonist/hero is Billy Beane here, a general manager who in his own way adopted a revolutionary approach to baseball that some consider as significant as Branch Rickey inventing the farm system.
Beane is played here by Brad Pitt and he was a journeyman player who was given a scouting job in the Oakland Athletics organization which was the last team he played for. Beane gradually rose through the ranks and was now general manager at the turn of this century. What to do in the way of competing in this day of free agency with teams who have fabulously wealthy and spending owners like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in the American League.
The answer comes from Jonah Hill who Pitt hires away from the Cleveland Indians organization and the key is on base percentage. However you get on base, hit, walk, error, hit by pitch or the occasional passed ball by a catcher, you're on and in a position to score. No flashy hitters with huge contracts in the Beane system, just get on base and get moved around.
Of course on screen it works and the Oakland Athletics enjoy a sprint of success in the last decade. But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and now a lot of teams are copying the Athletics.
I could critique the system, but this is for movie reviews not a sports writer's column. And the film is a tribute to two men and the system they fashioned. Brad Pitt the visionary general manager and Jonah Hill the bean counter statistician who is an integral part of the success.
Moneyball is unfortunately not a film that who are not sports fans or even baseball fans only can really appreciate. Still that's a wide selection of viewers it can relate to. It received six Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brad Pitt and Best Supporting Actor for Jonah Hill. There's a nice performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as field manager Art Howe. Hoffman's range continually amazes. You can hardly believe this is the same man who also got an Oscar for playing Truman Capote. He disappears into roles better than any other actor since Paul Muni.
A film for baseball fans, but that's a large audience pilgrim.