I Don't Even Like Baseball

Rating: 8/10 (26 November 2016)

I hate sports, I really do but I love movies and this one peaked my interest and I decided to watch it and I was thoroughly impressed by what I saw. The filmmakers To a really good job of making you care about the success of The Oakland Athletics because they take the time to show you just how bad a state they are in. They also take the time to build the characters so that you understand how important it is for them to succeed. Brad Pitt was fantastic in this film not only did he have some really great one liners but he had a great heart to him you felt sorry for him through seeing his last failings and I really loved his chemistry with Jonah Hill who was also great in this film up until The Wolf of Wall Street this was his best performance ever, I loved his character because he was easy to relate to, that new kid quality does that and I thought Hill did a great job with some of the more emotional scenes. The baseball scenes are filmed terrifically there done in a very documentation style which makes them feel more life like. The relationship between Pitt and his daughter was a really nice touch it made you care more about him and gave you a sense of who he was as a person not just a manager. I liked the fact that they made this film feel real, you completely understand how bad the odds are against this new system, you see them be put down, get angry at defeats and face dismissal and it makes you care all the more about this team succeeding. The late great Phillip Seymour Hoffman was in this movie and he did a great job, I really liked his character he didn't agree with this system and it let you get the series of events from the players perspective and added a more personal touch to the games. I do have a few flaws with this film, for one Chris Pratts character was very wasted, at first it seemed as if they were setting up a good arc for his character but they don't give it the time required to make you care and just ends up being unnecessary. I also thought that they should have taken the time to see the teams success instead of simply shown it in a montage as it didn't give the victories any emotional weight and was an unsatisfactory conclusion to such a good story arc.
Despite hating sports I really enjoyed this movie, I loved Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, you really got invested in the characters and the team and the sporting sequences themselves were very well done.
84%/A-