Moneyball

Moneyball tries very hard to turn Michael Lewis's stat-wonky baseball book into a movie, but doesn't quite succeed. It's an interesting story, but with a script packed with cheap dramatics and awkward storytelling, it makes for a middling film.

The 2001 Oakland Athletics make it to the second round of the AL playoffs, only to lose to the New York Yankees. Oakland loses several of its key players in the off-season, and GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt): his team's payroll is only a fraction of big-market teams. Along with Yale graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), Beane organizes a team based on statistical abilities rather than hitting or starpower. At first Beane and Brand meet resistance and ridicule, but as the 2002 season goes along they seem vindicated, the A's putting together a 20 game win streak and running deep into the playoffs.

Moneyball is dramatically flat. Baseball writers and sports-savvy critics have critiqued the film's inaccuracies (here is a good example) and I'll defer to their judgment. Factuality aside, I found it hard to accept the premise that sabremetrics making the A's marginally better makes for a great underdog story. Beane's methods were employed elsewhere in baseball to great affect: more well-honed statistical analysis swept away old-fashioned, often silly methods of talent scouting (juding a player's face?) and led many teams to success, including the 2004 Boston Red Sox. But as other teams utilized the concept, its impact arguably became watered down: witness Oakland's mediocre performance last season. Moneyball tries to turn a business concept into a film, with decidedly mixed results.

The film underwent a troubled production, changing hands from Steven Soderbergh to Bennett Miller (Capote), with Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zailland (Schindler's List) taking stabs at the script. This likely accounts for the slipshod narrative and facile dramatic elements: a subplot with Beane, his daughter (Kerris Dorsey) and ex-wife (Robin Wright) feels tacked on for cheap pathos, and flashbacks of Beane's playing career are awkwardly inserted into the story. There's some snappy Sorkin dialogue but nothing especially memorable, and character development (aside from Beane) is rote. Miller's direction is competent, making liberal use of archival footage and employing some striking visual motifs (the recurring empty stadium is nice), but can't overcome the dramatic shortcomings.

Brad Pitt is the glue that holds the film together. Pitt owns the film with a quiet, self-effacing performance, perfectly catching Beane's mixture of cocky ambition and brooding frustration. Pitt's co-stars don't really register. Jonah Hill is good in a restrained performance, but Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson's War) is wasted and Robin Wright (The Conspirator) has a glorified cameo.

Moneyball is an interesting business concept that doesn't translate to a movie. Frankly, who cares if sabermetrics helped the Oakland A's won one more game in 2002?