Review: Moneyball

Brad Pitt plays a former ‘coulda been a contender’ baseball player turned GM of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, who in addition to having the worst name for a baseball team I’ve heard, are much lower-budgeted than their more well-known counterparts like the New York Yankees. They have also just lost three of their star players to better and richer teams. Pitt, determined to make a success as a GM that never quite materialised for him as a rather mediocre player, refuses to lose. The film argues that the teams with the most money can obviously afford the best players, and the system is clearly flawed and uneven. But Pitt may just have found a solution to the problem; he hires nerdy economics expert Jonah Hill to revolutionise the process by which a team is put together and managed. According to Hill, most teams have a bunch of players whose talents are undervalued because they’re looking at things the wrong way (Much like when we first meet Hill, he’s himself being overlooked by his work colleagues and superiors). By using Hill’s statistics-based method, Pitt is able to assemble a team of under-the-radar (or misdiagnosed) talents for an affordable sum and through trades. The team scouts (especially head scout Ken Medlock who Pitt has known since he was a player himself) and even the team manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman) strenuously object to the well-established intuition-based method of finding talent. Hoffman in particular feels his experience and intelligence being insultingly substituted for numbers-crunching by some Economics student who knows not a goddamn thing about the game. Whilst Pitt tries to sell this long-term approach to everyone concerned (and given the team’s crap start to the season they are all very concerned), he is also dealing with personal issues related to trying to maintain a relationship with his 12-year old daughter (Kerris Dorsey) whom he doesn’t get to see often enough, and his own loneliness after splitting from her mother (Robin Wright, in yet another dud role). Arliss Howard plays the owner of the rival Red Sox, Chris Pratt plays an Oakland A player and young father who lacks confidence on the field, whilst the various scouts and know-it-alls are played by the likes of Jack McGee, Nick Searcy, and Glenn Morshower. Ron Washington is amusing as the coach of the team, who thinks Pitt is nuts, but rolls with it nonetheless.

This is one of those annoying situations where spoilers are unavoidable in discussing some of the most important issues I had with this film, so if you haven’t seen the film yet, well, I’ve never been one to read an entire review before seeing the film, so what the hell is wrong with you anyway? Save this for later. Thar be spoilers ahead, so ye best turn back now. No I haven’t got a clue why I’m talking like a pirate, either. I wish I could be enthusiastic about this 2011 sports movie from director Bennett Miller (the overrated “Capote”), but unfortunately I didn’t much like it, certainly not as a sports movie at any rate. I don’t much like baseball (it sure as hell beats gridiron, though), and don’t much understand it (nor do most Australians, I would wager), but that hasn’t stopped me enjoying “Major League”, “Field of Dreams”, or “Bull Durham”. However, this film decides to give us a baseball movie unlike any other in the sense that it’s not about the players, it’s not about the rah-rah celebratory elements of the game, instead it’s about money and statistics. Some of this is interesting, mostly because it’s a relatively fresh perspective. A lot of it, however is dull, and I kept wishing the film would focus more on the relationships like Pitt and Hill, or Pitt and his daughter Kerris Dorsey, which is by far the best thing in the film. I liked their relationship, and the final scene is damn near perfect (The lyrics to Aussie singer/actress Lenka Kripac’s song threw me for a loop. I’m not sure that song choice was appropriate, even if there’s a point being made, because the lyrics seem too harsh). Unfortunately, Miller and screenwriters Steven Zaillian (“Schindler’s List”, “Gangs of New York”, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”, “Zodiac”) and Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”), in adapting the Michael Lewis book aren’t interested in that. Well, Lewis apparently isn’t, I assume everyone else was just following his lead. So instead, we get a few interesting moments here and there (watching Pitt and Hill having to break the bad news to players, for instance), generally OK performances (I guess Jonah Hill earned an Oscar nomination for...not appearing in a comedy?), a terrific final scene, but not much else.

I don’t much understand baseball, I understand money and statistics perhaps even less, and so I’m afraid the film didn’t do it for me. A traditional baseball movie would’ve been more clichéd, but at least it might’ve been easier for me to get into it. At times this was more like watching two dorks trading baseball cards than a sports movie. Worst of all, it’s a film about an innovation in the game that fails. At least it fails for this team in this movie. They don’t make it to the finals. Worse still, Pitt’s character gets offered a job with the top team, turns it down (for a valid reason, don’t get me wrong but the film isn’t about that), and even if the innovation had been successful for the A’s, everyone else (i.e. The richer teams) ended up stealing it from him anyway, so he’s even more of a failure. From what I’ve read, the A’s trajectory wasn’t improved after 2006 either. Did the strategy change the game? Apparently yes...for every other damn team except the one depicted in the film. So why the hell am I watching this then? Why is the film not about one of the more successful teams? Being poor and struggling doesn’t mean your story deserves to be told. Yes, Pitt ‘wins’ through the love of his daughter, but that, as I said, is not what the film was about, and even Pitt himself clearly sees himself as a two-time failure (as a player and manager). It wasn’t about a father and daughter, it was about baseball and the innovation Hill (whose character apparently doesn’t have a personal life. Yes, he’s a math geek, but c’mon, that’s just lazy screenwriting) and Pitt introduced to the game, and it failed. And I’m not talking, a “Rocky” situation where the audience leaves feeling good ‘coz the underdog hung with the champ from bell to bell. Baseball, through my limited understanding of it, doesn’t seem like a sport where such a thing would be much consolation for the players, the coach, the staff, and the fans who have so much invested in the big win. Maybe if they came second, but they didn’t even really come close to that. Sorry, but the film is about a failure, and although the ending is really quite beautiful, it’s not enough to lift you out of what is a real downer. Funny how a fictional, comedic movie (“Major League”) tells this story of a team of losers in a much more enjoyable way than this highly-touted drama. I mean, the payoff is different (and better), and we get to know all of the players well enough to care. And although we all know who’s gonna win, the baseball scenes are enjoyable even if you’re not a student of the game. This much more ‘substantial’ film pales in comparison to that (at best) cult sports-comedy. Of course, this one’s about the management, not the team, but perhaps that’s the problem. Perhaps sports movies from the manager’s point of view just aren’t as interesting.

There are moments, and Pitt is better here than some others have been giving him credit for. Other than that, I think you’re all nuts for praising this. A horrible waste of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman too, in a nothing part. What the hell is he doing in this? (Answer: Not much). It’s a tolerable film, but no more than that. I just didn’t get it. Maybe if you know the true story, you might get more out of it, but it didn’t do much for me.

Rating: C+