Moneyball
starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Zeymour Hoffman
screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin
directed by Bennett Miller
Rating: ♦♦♦♦◊
Based on the 2003 book of the same name by Michael Lewis, Moneyball is a sports biography of Billy Bean, General Manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball club. Faced with the problem of replacing the loss of expensive stars on a small budget, Bean and his Assistant General Manager concoct a strictly economic formula for evaluating players to hire to make their team competitive against bigger budget organizations like the New York Yankees. He can’t buy the talent he needs to take his team to the next playoffs, so instead of replacing the lost players he has to “reinvent” them - recreate their statistical achievements with ‘lesser,’ or ‘undervalued’players. With his economist assistant he sets out to find cheap talent. And he finds it. But his eccentric approach to the Game generates a lot of resistance and then antagonism among his peers in the professional baseball business. His success, though, in leading the As to a record-setting 20-game winning streak earns him credibility and repute.
I usually don’t go in for sports movies, and I am uncommitted about Brad Pitt, so I delayed a lot before renting this movie. But I’m very glad I watched it. Good movie!