Billy Beane looks to change the rules of Baseball

Rating: 8/10 (20 November 2013)

"If you lose the last game of the season, nobody gives a sh*t." – Billy Beane
The tried and tested method to creating a winning team in baseball was simple; whoever spent the most would eventually come out on top. This was the pitfall of modern baseball and the inevitable cycle that Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), the General Manager of the Oakland A's found himself in. It was the attempt of Billy Beane to change all of this by creating a team on a computer- generated analysis of stats rather than the players themselves.
In essence this is a sports movie, it follows a team through its highs and lows and watches the underdog try to beat the system. These are components of a good sports movie and it is generally conceived that it is the actual sport that creates the feelings of tension. The interesting thing about Moneyball is that it does not follow the players within the sport as much as a regular movie in its genre. The bulk of it follows the back room grind of Billy Beane and Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), the young economist student that brings the new way of player picking to Beane's attention. With a general lack of sport, or sport being the secondary aspect, it may seem that there will be a lack of thrills for its genre. However, this is ultimately not the case, as the boardroom meetings and telephone calls for trades create true excitement.
It is a film that looks to break one simple fact, that money is not the only thing that can bring success. It is unchartered territory for Billy Beane who throws all caution to the wind at the start receiving hostility from those around him. A film that centres on numbers and graphs perhaps should not hold such electricity around every decision, but it does. You do not have to follow baseball to understand the goings on, as most is explained clearly and is created through the interaction between Pitt and Hill.
There is a lot on the shoulders of Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill to carry this film that, as acknowledged, does not have a huge amount of sport within it. Pitt plays a more brash up front and in charge character that could easily overwhelm the quieter, geekier Hill as Brand. However, as the film develops you begin to see the real relationship between the two, as partners in this audacious attempt to change baseball. The dialogue is written to perfection to keep the action shooting along, even off the diamond of the baseball pitch. Pitt has stuck with the role through several directors (Steven Soderbergh and David Frankel) and is really allowed to shine under the eventual direction of Bennett Miller.
The film is gripping to the end as the authenticity of the story holds true over the year that Billy Beane worked on his lean budget in an attempt to show up the world of baseball.
4 Stars.