Really Fine Baseball Movie

Rating: 8/10 (4 January 2014)

One of the better baseball movies, this has almost the feel of a documentary, with a realism as it shows how real events played out, resulting in a new modern strategic mindset in baseball.
Jonah Hill steals the show here as the brilliant tactician and statistician who figures out how to put together a great team on the cheap. His performance raises the movie to a cut above. This is his movie, in my humble opinion.
Bratt Pitt is OK, but familiarly one-dimensional as the man, Billy Beane, who had the guts to run with Peter Brand's revolutionary untested theory on how cash-poor teams like his Oakland A's could compete with the better funded teams. He almost phones in his performance, I feel (some may disagree), but he does enough to represent his character in a way that doesn't take away from the story.
But the real star of this movie is the story. It's intriguing enough and well-told enough to make you want to watch the film to the very end to see if the theory worked.
Those who are not into baseball might find this a hard film to watch, but baseball fans absolutely have to see it if just to see how these guys changed the face of baseball. Make no mistake - here you see the strategy that has revolutionized baseball (for the better).