Moneyball
- Genre: Drama
- Director: Bennett Miller
- Stars: Brad Pitt, Robin Wright, Jonah Hill
- Rate: *** 1/2
In 2002, Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s general manager, reversed his struggling team’s fortunes by choosing players on the basis of their deeply analyzed playing skills, rather than what a scout thought they could do. This meant putting players in the lineup that expert eyes had judged unskilled or burned out.
In an Oscar-pitching performance, Brad Pitt is Beane, the iconoclastic GM who seems needlessly cocky, even foolhardy in his unorthodox approach to the game.
Moneyball’s home-run screenplay, by Steve Zailian (Schindler’s List) and Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network), is based on the thoughtful and factual 2003 bestseller by Michael Lewis.
From this “inside baseball” source material, director Bennett Miller (Capote) crafts an emotional and dramatic film that even non-jocks will enjoy.
Pitt as Beane and Jonah Hill as Peter Brand, the 25-year-old Harvard economics grad who crunches the numbers that fuel Oakland’s unconventional appointments, bring deep shades of humour and pathos to their characters.
