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Rating: 7/10 (26 February 2012)

Nominated for 6 Oscars, Moneyball is based on the true story of the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, and his underdog team that almost made it to the championship in 2002. The General Manager at the time, Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, had to make drastic changes to his teams lineup, due to the fact that the A's had no money to pay for their star players. When it came time to scout for new players, the rest of the staff was doing things the old way. Billy Beane and his new Assistant G.M., Peter Brand saw baseball a whole different way. Based on the books by baseball writer and historian, Bill James; Peter had come up with a system based on math, to theoretically draft the best baseball team at a much smaller cost.
Billy Beane himself was an MLB player, and started his career out at the New York Mets. It started his senior year in high school, when he was offered a full ride to Stanford to play baseball, but he chose to go to the New York Mets instead. What the scouts did not realize is that he was not cut out to actually play in the major leagues. Whether it was his confidence level, or just pure luck that he made it that far. It was made clear to him after he had been traded multiple times that he was not cut out for the major leagues.
His story as a teenager is similar in many ways to his career as a General Manager, and that is what Moneyball effectively accomplishes. Since the beginning of baseball, scouts have been using the same techniques and statistics to find the best players, and it does not always work. Billy saw this at a young age, and it affected him the rest of his life. The scouts saw him statistically as the best player to join the major leagues, but what they could not find out is how he was actually going to turn out under pressure, and what type of person Billy was going to become as he grew up. Peter's new way of finding players for the major league still used statistics of course, but it ruled out certain aspects, such as, age, weight, injuries etc. The Oakland A's main focus now was who can make the most runs, because at the most simplistic form, runs are what win the game for the team.
Brad Pitt puts on a superb performance much like he always does, and shows the frustration that Billy must have been going through those rough years as a G.M., as he was reminded of his younger years playing in the MLB. I definitely think Brad Pitt deserves to be up for best Actor, and I hope he does get it. Everyone else in the movie did great playing the supporting roles, and making the experience much more enjoyable. Jonah Hill did a good job playing Peter Brand, but for me I always see him as goofy Jonah Hill. About half way through it I adjusted and he actually turned out to be great for the part. It would be amazing for him if he actually wins his supporting role, so he could break out of his comedic shell and do more serious roles like this one.
Moneyball accomplishes everything it is supposed to. It makes us want the Oakland A's to win the championship, even though we already know the outcome of the game, and we want Billy and Peter's ideas to work out, and for them to be successful. It's a wonderful story of the underdog, and even if they don't come out on top, they still accomplished so much for how small of a team they started out as. All that being said, I still don't think its best film worthy. It is a great story, and is definitely one of the best sports films in a long time, but it was not the most groundbreaking film of the year.
7/10