Good Sports Story

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2012)

This is based upon a true story.
As General Manager for the Oakland Athletics baseball team, Billy Beane (Pitt) decides to revamp the game of baseball using statistics to select players. The stats are provided by Peter Brand (Hill), a numbers cruncher, Billy hires away from the Cleveland Indians.
This gives us a pretty good view of how baseballs' General Managers operate and what they have to deal with. In this case Billy has to deal with more than most since he and Peter go against baseball lore, wisdom, history, scouts' analysis, long time baseball men and, of course, his manager on the field, Art Howe (Seymour Hoffman). And, the way things start out, these new ideas don't have the fans on board either.
I did expect this to be more emotional as you would find in most true sports stories. I was hoping that it would not change me from the team I sometimes root for to be a Oakland Athletics fan.
The pacing, dialogues, and good acting by all held me and I didn't need the Kleenex tissues by my side that are mandatory for watching true stories. You just know you are going to need them. But not this time. Although, I almost reached for the box during one of the last scenes when Billy was driving aimlessly (he does that) and listening to his daughter singing a song for him on the CD. I thought: here it comes as he has a big decision to make.
This is a very good baseball story, but I don't see any Oscars for anyone in here. However, I am sure Brad Pitt will be nominated anyway. He is a terrific actor.
There is a statement at the end of the movie that says when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series two years later they used a statistical system similar to Billy's. (7/10)
Violence: No. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Yes, some F-bombs, but not many