Math and baseball together

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2012)

With the best players playing the right way, a team is assured a victory. But if the best players are too expensive, do you simply take who you can get and give in? Or have you been overlooking quality players simply because conventional wisdom said you should?
Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) is General Manager of the Oakland A's and after losing the last game of the season against the Yankees, three of his star players leave for more lucrative contracts. He'd hoped to match their offers, but the owner couldn't afford it. Then, while looking for a trade at the Cleveland Indians' headquarters, he noticed his counterpart appeared to be taking direction from someone he'd never seen before. After the meeting he approaches Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill), the one person he didn't know in that meeting who seemed to be calling the shots. Brand and Beane soon have a rapport and before long Brand is Beane's second-in-command despite serious resistance from the rest of the staff in the Manager's office who feel Brand is a threat to the team and the game itself.
Sabermetrics has had wide-reaching and long-lasting effects on the game of baseball from supposedly ending the Red Sox losing streak to posthumously exonerating fabled great "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. The story is interesting and Jonah Hill acting way outside his comfort zone is, to say the least, adequate. Brad Pitt also plays his part well as he often does, regardless of the material. That said, at two hours and thirteen minutes, the film feels too long. I don't say that because I believe all movies should be shorter than this, but I do believe this one should've been shorter.