Moneyball, 2011

Moneyball, 2011
Director: Bennet Miller
Cast: Brad Pitt, Robin Wright, Jonah Hill



Stage: home theatre, late screening


Moneyball in short: Oakland A's GM Billy Beane is handicapped with the lowest salary constraint in baseball. If he ever wants to win the World Series, Billy must find a competitive advantage. Billy is about to turn baseball on its ear when he uses statistical data to analyze and place value on the players he picks for the team.


Preps: isn't this the one with Brad Pitt, hot cake in our theatres? I adore the act of Pitt and want to see this.



Reality: Hm. Sometimes being a good actor means obviously that you take on shitty roles. I am dissappointed. Up to this point, the main movie in this genre for me was Any Given Sunday, a good piece about cruelty of sports world with Cameron Diaz.
Now, this perticular piece touches the economy of each club involved and the drama that can derive from a simple fact: actors are a currency and they are of value as long as they can play. And each club makes assumptions, statistics and creates a perfect team up to the level it can afford. Unfortunately sometimes they don't have enough sponsors or money to buy the perfect team, so they fill the spots with less important, less capable actors. And this in whole creates a lot of dramatic effects along the season.
As audience, we enter this world with Brad Pitt, a game creator, trying or struggling to have figures working for him. A prepotentious leader, who takes advantage of economist that makes the analysis and serves the data at a glance.

Even though what I wrote so far, sounds inspiring, it is the mere admiration to the topic. The movie isn't nearly as intriguing as for instance Any Given Sunday or some other sport movies. Brad Pitt doesn't act as he is supposed to, the energy between the cast isn't established and the audience is left hungry behind the bars. Yes, a good insight, however, not delivered good enough. What the director was thinking, I don't have a clue. But I am sure that he wasn't fighting for the piece. It loses me after half an hour. Don't really recommend it at all, unless you are a huge fan of sports movies. In this case you will find it completely average. My opinion is below that.


My personal rate: 0 (do something else, if you aren't a true fan of sport movies)


Moneyball on IMDB