made a fan out of me

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2012)

I've lived in Oakland for over a decade - since a few months before the story of Moneyball starts. In a town where local elections are swayed by candidates' stances on building a new A's ballpark, I had never heard the story Moneyball is based on. Which is to say, I'm not a baseball fan.
Sure I've seen a few A's games, but they were either free or less than the cost of a movie ticket. We got the cheapest seats, since you can basically sit anywhere you want once the game starts. I live in Oakland, but AT&T Park (where the Giants play) is actually closer and a much nicer place to spend an afternoon anyway. So you see, I'm one of the 99% that put the A's franchise in its current lowly state.
Add to this that I am one of the vocal minority that absolutely hates writer Sorkin's previous effort, The Social Network, plus the fact that I never much liked Jonah Hill, and that leaves only the fact that it's set in Oakland as the reason I watched.
But I liked it.
A great deal of that admiration is for the screenplay. Not the story, which, although timely, is thin. And, just like with The Social Network, the characters don't involve me at all. So it can only be the script and acting that puts it over the top. A style of dialogue that seemed stilted and implausible coming from the mouths of teenagers in The Social Network, fits the hardball business culture of this movie perfectly. Plus, Beane's daughter's singing is brilliant, equivalent in role and effect to the song and dance in Blue Valentine.
I don't love Moneyball, but for a little over two hours Pitt & Co. kept me interested in the sport of baseball, and that's about two hours longer than the real-life A's can manage.