Moving, Thought Provoking. Not Just for Baseball Fans.

Rating: Null/10 (24 October 2011)

"Moneyball" is a smart, solid, moving film. It's about baseball and it's about life. I'm not much of a baseball fan, but I really enjoyed this film. The film succeeds on both levels. It gives you a close-up look at baseball, both on the field and behind the scenes, a look that feels very real, but it also gives you baseball as a metaphor for bigger life issues: faith, delusion, winning, losing, sacrifice, devotion. I cared about Billie Beane, the main character, and in his struggles I saw my own. Overall, "Moneyball" is one of the best baseball movies I've ever seen.
A man, Billie Beane (Brad Pitt), decides that he and his partner, a Yale mathematician and baseball fan, have a way of putting a baseball team together that will cost less money and result in more wins. Beane's method defies conventional wisdom. If he's right, powerful people will lose money, status, and jobs. They don't want him to be right, and, in any case, they think he's both nuts and obnoxious. The owner of the Oakland Athletics gives Beane the power to test out his theories on his team, but coach Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) doesn't want to comply. Hoffman makes Howe out to be an obnoxious butt blister, a depiction that Howe has protested. As "Moneyball" tells the story, as long as Howe resists Beane's ideas, the Athletics lose. Beane resorts to cutthroat tactics to get his ideas on the field. Once he succeeds in establishing his dominance over Howe, things change.
In Beane's fanatical devotion to his method, in the giant and costly risks he took, I saw not just a story about baseball, but a very moving journey about innovation and dedication. Especially moving and convincing was a scene when Beane's ideas seemed to be working well and people seemed to be coming around to his side. He didn't join in with others in the frivolity of champagne showers. Rather, he was as grim, as focused, as he'd been throughout the rest of the film. His dedication was not just to winning games, but to changing the way the game is played.
This is the first time I can remember caring about a Brad Pitt character in a movie. I cared about lesser characters, as well, including hapless first baseman Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt) and a player who learns, from Beane, that his career is through.
Beane's ex-wife (Robin Wright) and daughter (Kerris Dorsey) are on screen briefly, but their scenes were extraordinarily touching. They weren't cloying, forced or artificial, as are too many distaff scenes in baseball movies.