Moneyball

Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is the General Manager of the Oakland A's and is constrained by a low budget which doesn't allow him much option to improve a losing team.  He encounters Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale Economics graduate working for another team.  Billy brings him to the Oakland A's to try and come up with recruits via statistics, much to the chagrin of coach Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman.)  Can Billy change the face of baseball and lead his team to victory?

I had read that this is a baseball movie even for people who know little about the game.  Wrong!  Throughout the movie my husband and I kept looking at each other to see if either one of us knew what was going on!  Nothing is explained in black and white; it took me at least half an hour to realize that Billy was the General Manager and Art was the coach.  And I only found out after discussing the movie with guys at work that the table of guys discussing the players were actually the talent scouts who search for new recruits.  (Although this did lead to the one funny line in the movie.  A possible recruit is mentioned, and one scout says they can't hire him because his girlfriend is ugly: "A guy with a girl like that obviously has low self-esteem.") 

With that out of the way, let's get to the merits of the film.  The acting is good, albeit not Oscar-worthy; Brad brings his "A" game to the role, and Jonah Hill gives a subtle performance as the guy who is afraid to speak until his boss tells him to.  Even though he has few lines in the film, you do get to see him grow and gain more confidence as the film progresses. Hoffman was almost unrecognizeable in his role.

The best part of the film is the editing.  The movie intercuts between the story at hand, flashbacks to Billy's own recruitment (where he decides to give up a college scholarship to play professional ball and then disappoints when he turns out not to be the star they expected,) and lots of cuts to computer screens, statistical charts, and actual game footage.

Nominated for Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Editing, Sound Mixing, Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture.

CinaJim's take: Did not live up to the hype.   

Coming up next: CinJim's picks for the Oscars