Brad Pitt hits one out of the park.

Rating: Null/10 (25 September 2011)

For those of you who may have forgotten that Brad Pitt is a great actor, welcome to "Moneyball." After what seems like a lifetime of being tabloid fodder for the paparazzi, it's easy to lose sight of Brad Pitt as one of our finest actors. Armed with a brilliant screenplay by Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, Pitt shows us just how completely he can dominate a screen for what is essentially a two hour and 13 minute one-man performance. In terms of the writing pedigree, refer to Steve Zaillian's "Schindler's List" and Sorkin's "The Social Network." What is of particular cinematic interest is the confident ease of Bennett Miller's direction, who's only other directorial credit was 2005's biopic "Capote," starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.
"Moneyball' is not a sports movie in the traditional sense, but really the story of one man and his relationship to the sport that he loves so much. Mr. Pitt portrays Billy Beane, a "bonus baby" for the NY Mets in 1980 (drafted by the Mets the same year as Darryl Strawberry.) However his career as a player never amounted to much. He ended up playing on four teams in four years with an anemic batting average of 218, with a grand total of 66 hits in 5 years. Beane's ignominious failure as a player haunted him throughout his adult life, as we learn in a series of flashbacks and his comment that signing with the Mets was the "last decision he would ever make for money."
Instead, Billy Beane made baseball history off the field. Long after his playing days were over, he ascended to the job of General Manager for the Oakland A's, the team with the lowest payroll in the baseball. And with the help of a young man (Jonah Hill) in his first job out of Yale, defying all baseball logic, develop a new, mathematically inspired method of putting a competitive team on the field without signing a single high-priced free agent, known as "Sabermetrics." It is this "front-office" brilliance and foresight that has made Billy Beane the baseball legend that his prodigious athletic talents never could.
It was delightful to see Jonah Hill in his first grown-up, non-comedic role. Hill and Pitt have an easy, comfortable relationship that grows convincingly throughout the film until they are essentially peers. Also of note is the adorable Kerris Dorsey (late of television's "Brothers and Sisters,") as Billy's precocious young daughter "Casey."
But all praise goes to the extraordinary Brad Pitt, looking every bit the ex-jock, with a wad of chewing tobacco firmly implanted in his lower lip, feeling most at home walking through the locker room as someone who has grown up in just such an environment. His easy-going delivery, and nice-guy demeanor makes Billy Beane a charming, lovable rogue that you are more than delighted to spend a couple of hours with. This is not a sports story in which you sit at the end of your seat anticipating a "9th inning home run" or a "12th round knockout," or a "last second basketball buzzer-beater." It is a thinking persons sports story about a flawed man haunted by his past failures, both as an athlete and a husband, who forever changes the game of baseball, long after his playing days are over.
Brad Pitt has truly hit one "out of the park" in Moneyball.