Moneyball (2011)

Sitting with a cool beer in one hand, a hot dog in the other, a group of friends could easily argue the semantics of modern baseball until they were blue in the face. With constant shut-outs, players pulling multi-million dollar deals and product-placement as the new American dream; it is not hard to see the modern athlete as being less skill-oriented and more pop-culture celebrity as they step up to the plate. Who will sell more tickets? Who will look good with an A-list actress on his arm? Who can ensure Gatorade will always be sold in grocery stores? These are tough questions facing baseball today, not who is the better player? Who can hit the ball further? Who makes runs? This change in one of America’s most endearing past times is the topic of conversation in Bennett Miller’s recent film, Moneyball, and his subject of choice – Oakland A’s General Manager, Billy Beane - baseball’s most notorious loser.

Beane has always been interested in sports. Playing basketball, baseball, and football in high school, he dropped football to ensure an old injury wouldn’t hurt his baseball dreams. After declining admission into Stanford University to join with the New York Mets, Beane soon realized that he couldn’t match the same skill set. Unable to change his decision about Stanford, Beane found comfort behind the scenes as first a scout and later as General Manager of the A’s. In Moneyball, he is played with lacking simplicity by Brad Pitt. While Pitt’s performance is being romanticized as award season rolls out, one can easily see it is not his best performance. That does not mean Moneyball is a lackluster film. While many argue this is Pitt’s Blind Side, one could easily argue that this is Miller’s The Departed (the film that Scorsese finally won for). Like Scorsese, this isn’t the greatest character film – but the best directorial effort this cinematic year. This is a movie about statistics, about how over-valued the game of baseball has become, and how large pools of dollars do not necessarily man pennants at home. This, without someone strong behind the camera, would be either a very dull movie about numbers or just another bio-pic about a leader that fell short in the final moments. Thankfully, with Miller’s ease, this becomes a watchable film about the “girth” of baseball. As he intermixes real moments in baseball coupled with our actors doing their part, he also races the screen with statistical numbers, computer logarithms, and as Hill says early in the film, “…their own Island of Misfit Toys”. Miller transforms this from an underdog sports film to a story about the human condition. He lingers on scenes that show Pitt on the phone arguing contracts, he demonstrates the absurdity of draft picks by painting a table of geriatrics looking for “Fabio”, the endearing close shot of Pitt’s worked eyes, and lacking voice of humanity when it is time to trade someone. Yet, despite Pitt receiving most of the praise, Miller demonstrates finesse by giving us a movie that doesn’t paint baseball in the greatest light. Miller’s visual of baseball isn’t pretty, and throughout this very well lit film, a trained eye can catch his jabs and insults at today’s modern game.

To appease those who have read this far, we will discuss Brad Pit, who meanders his way through this film by tossing chairs and snapping his fingers at Jonah Hill. His character portrayal of Beane, to those who are unaware of Beane’s life, will be confusing. What is his relationship with his daughter? Why is Spike Jonze with his wife? Why does he work out so much during games? Why did his mind suddenly flip statistically when he met Hill? All of these questions will remain unanswered as you sit through the nearly two hours of Pitt attempting to grab at anything sports related. I will give him that he is inspiring when he speaks, but as a majority of this film he is sitting, considering possibilities, and transforming into Zen Pitt – he just becomes pointless. Perhaps it was Sorkin’s writing that failed at developing anything secure, but Beane feels bland, like it is Pitt being Pitt on a lazy Sunday. Sorkin’s writing also creates further ailments as the film progresses – mismatched messages make us ask why we think Beane’s daughter is creative, only to underscore the feeling by having her lip-sync a song about her Dad being a loser? That immediately destroyed the emotion needed at that final moment by using a mere “American Idol” throwback. It was instances like this that fumbled horribly in this film as well and felt like the film leftovers of Sorkin’s other work, the greatly overpraised The Social Network. Michael Lewis’ work needed to have a stronger writer onboard to show value in the book that literally changed the face of baseball. Pitt’s performance will not even be remembered in a year’s time. Moneyball is Bennett Miller’s film. It is not a Brad Pitt movie. It is about the broken nature of baseball. It demands that we re-evaluate the grassroots of statistical analysis in the game and apply it to the valuation of the modern player (not just because he has an ugly girlfriend, he will be less confident).

Needless to say, Moneyball is not a film that will make you feel good about baseball. It is a dirty picture (despite the gloss of the frame) about a rag-tag band of losers that remain losers by the end of the film, and Pitt tries – and fails – as our trout swimming against the current trying to find greener pastures. Is this a movie about being a loser? Plenty of questions are proposed and later forgotten as the film progresses, and the stand-out star becomes the statistics and Miller’s direction. Moneyball is the type of film that gets you excited for no reason, and in the end, shows a guy who believed in the technology, but didn’t follow through. This is a film about the passion of math, and how its technical applications can be used to burst a bloated game. Baseball should fear Moneyball.