Right On The Money

Rating: 8/10 (29 November 2011)

As an Englishman who has never seen a live game of baseball I enjoy movies about the game and reading about charismatic teams/players such as the Jackie Robinson Dodgers and the Ted Williams Red Sox. Brad Pitt I can take or leave. In Moneyball I am more than happy to take Pitt who turns in a thoughtful performance that owes absolutely nothing to his celebrated good looks and everything to observation. This is one case where baseball really is a metaphor for the road we all travel on the journey of life and poses thoughtful questions such as can we deliberately choose to be a winner when the world - and possibly even our friends, family and ourselves, perceive us as losers. Only four names in the cast were known to me and one of them, Robin Wright, has less than five minutes of screen time but the other three, Pitt, of course, plus Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jonah Hill, make a great combo and get strong support from virtually the entire cast. One of the finest films of the year.