MVP Pitt hits a grand-slam in arguably the best film about the game and one of the year's best films period.

Rating: 10/10 (10 January 2012)

MONEYBALL (2011) **** Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, Chris Pratt, Stephen Bishop, Spike Jonze, Arliss Howard, Brent Jennings. Pitt gives an Oscar-worthy performance in arguably his best on screen work as determined Oakland A's baseball General Manager Billy Beane, whose desire to get his last-placed major league team to a fulfilling winning season in a genuine pennant race by employing the unorthodox plan involving a statistics number crunching green wunderkind (Hill in a surprisingly underplayed winning performance equally worth a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award too boot). Based on the best-seller by Michael Lewis, dream team scribes Aaron Sorkin & Steve Zaillian hit a grand-slam with equally refined clear-eyed direction by Bennett Miller. Wisely Pitt in charge with a low-key, no 'bs' in his performance of a man attempting to do one specific goal : to win-in-spite-of-the-odds underdog undertaking that so easily could fall into a sports film cliché (which it lingers with admittedly) but is arguably the best film ever made about the game and one of the year's best films, bar none. '