Moneyball

Movie: Moneyball

Genre: sports drama

Synopsis: This is based on what actually happened with the 2002 Oakland A’s/  Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is the general manager of the A’s.  They are just about the poorest team in the league, have just lost three key players, and Billy is being told by the owner that he just has to make do.  What Billy does is to hire Peter Brand (Jonah Hill).  Peter is a recent graduate of Yale with a degree in economics.  Peter has some rather innovative ideas about how to place value on a player.  What he does is a lot of number crunching with a computer to quantify what a player can do for the team.  Billy decides to follow Peter’s idea, which does not sit well with the veteran coaches and scouts on the team.  Once the manager is dragged kicking and screaming into the new direction, the A’s set a league record for consecutive wins.

My two cents: A great movie.  It provides a glimpse behind the scenes in what goes into managing a major league baseball, but does it without numbing the viewer with too much information.  Brad Pitt was great – as was Philip Seymour Hoffman as Art Howe, the manager.  The one I really loved was Jonah Hill.  I love seeing an actor completely switch the type of role he is playing.  Typically, Jonah seems to play the big bumbling goofball.  In “Cyrus” I saw a different – and rather creepy – side of what he can do.  In this movie he plays a whip-smart number kid fresh out of college who has the guts and confidence to follow his dream when only one guy on the team supports him.

Bottom line: definitely worth your time and money to see this.

[157]