Excellent movie about baseball and business

Rating: 8/10 (10 February 2012)

Moneyball is as much about business as baseball. It tells the story of Billy Beane, the general manager of the Major League Oakland A's. It is the early 2000's and the team have had a great season, getting to the playoffs and losing to the star studded New York Yankees. He would like to build on that success but the owner tells him he can't increase the team budget and three of his best players will be moving to bigger teams where they will get much bigger salaries.
The owner is fair and doesn't expect Beane to perform miracles. He knows his GM will try his best to unearth diamonds through his scouting team. Beane himself is very unhappy. He knows that, no matter how well he scouts and how hard he bargains; the sport is weighted in favour of the big clubs with the most money and in the long run, the odd good season apart, the A's will always be one of the runts of the MLB litter.
It is with this mindset that he holds the first meeting of the offseason with his scouting team. Like every other year the scouts (who are portrayed as much older than Beane, played by Brad Pitt) will try to find cheap talented players, using the tried old methods they have always used. Beane is not happy with this and tells the scouts that the old ways ware no longer good enough, as the A's can't compete with the richer teams without trying something different. He doesn't even know what this "new way" is but he knows he must try something.
By chance Beane meets Peter Brand, a young man who seems to have a lot of influence in the Cleveland Indians players selection. Beane is curious and Brand reveals that he uses a statistical method of grading players that, basically, grades players on how many runs they get, not on their style of play or their reputation. Brand is convinced that most baseball times don't look for what is really important when they are scouting for players. Beane thinks that this could be the angle he needs and hires Brand as his assistant, much to the chagrin of some of the scouting staff.
Beane and Brand bring in some new players that no other team seems to want. The season starts poorly and the manager doesn't want to pick some of the new players. However they stick with the new system and it starts to pay off as the team go on a record breaking unbeaten run and end the season in the playoffs.
I really enjoyed the movie. It seems to be a real underdog story but in the end baseball is shown to be a business first and last. The ending reveals the megarich Boston Red Sox won the World Series a few years later, using the system that Beane used in 2002 with the A's. It seems the richer teams just copied the new scouting system that worked and still throw a lot of money at players. So, again the smaller teams can't really compete! The acting is good. Jonah Hill is excellent in a rare non-comedy role. I thought Pitt was trying a bit too hard. Perhaps he had Oscar night in mind.
There are some great scenes, especially at the start of the movie when Beane confronts his old scouts and when he visits a player he wants to sign, knowing the player has received no other offers due to injury problems. There are a few "Hollywood" moments that jarred a bit, such as the match they broke the consecutive wins record (too much slow motion) and a few scenes with Beane's daughter (too much singing).
There isn't much actual baseball shown, so don't be put off from seeing this if you aren't a fan. This movie, like most good movies is about people and how they react to changing circumstances in their lives.