It's an old cliché that the best sports movies are never about sports. "Raging Bull," "Hoosiers" and "Bull Durham" are all considered some of the best sports movies ever made, and yet they deal with themes much larger than those played out on the field. Director Bennett Miller's "Moneyball" is no different. "Moneyball" is a sports movie that is more about economics and weighing the value of other human beings than it is about the Oakland Athletics. It is a movie that is very challenging in it's various themes and ideologies.
"Moneyball" tells the story of the 2002 Oakland Athletics who, after making it to the playoffs with 102 wins the year before, lose their top three players to free agency. While trying to find players who can replace the production of these players, Athletics general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) becomes frustrated with his scouting team because he believes they aren't looking for the right ways to fill the holes on the team. Beane claims they are "playing an unfair game," and they will continue to lose to teams like the New York Yankees — who have nearly three times Oakland's budget — as long as they "keep trying to beat the New York Yankees, by being the Yankees."
While searching for an alternative method to finding players, Beane stumbles across a young Yale graduate named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), who introduces him to a new concept called "moneyball." Moneyball is the idea that players can be judged solely on their run potential and that the way scouts and baseball teams have been evaluating players for years is now a dated method.
"Moneyball" is very interesting because it asks us to analyze other human beings based only on their ability to produce. Age doesn't matter. Physical prowess doesn't matter. Baseball knowledge doesn't matter. If a player can produce runs, then the moneyball ideology said that this player is a worthwhile asset. What is interesting about this is we are asked to buy into a cost-benefit analysis theory, while simultaneously being asked to care about a protagonist whose own potential is unpredictable. Beane and Brand establish a theory that is incredibly risky and hard to buy into.
Moneyball is all about not taking risks with your baseball club and instead only generating wins out of your line-up. The movie "Moneyball" is about two men who attempt to change the way baseball is played forever by establishing a new method that many people reject and can not predict.
The movie's theme is best summed up in one of Pitt's last lines in the film: "How can you not be romantic about baseball?" The irony of this statement is Beane's own theories are eliminating a lot of romanticism in baseball. And yet, Beane still approaches it in a romantic manner, which creates most of the tension in the film. Miller weaves this brilliantly as the movie doesn't shy away from questioning its own subject matter but builds on it to create more uncertainty.
Pitt's performance in the film is fantastic. The best film performances in movies based on real events are often those that make you completely forget that you are watching an actor portraying a real person. And I think just like Sean Penn in "Milk" or Daniel Day-Lewis in "My Left Foot," Pitt completely convinces the audience that he is Beane. Other than Pitt, though, there are not many performances of note. Philip Seymour Hoffman does a good job as Athletics manager Art Howe, but doesn't get enough screen time to have a very significant impact on the film. I would have enjoyed getting to see him on screen a little more, especially because there is a conflict earlier in the film involving Howe's contract, but the film never revisits the issue to resolve it. Hill does pretty well as the geeky assistant, but really never provides any more weight than your stereotypical geeky teenager.
"Moneyball" is one of those movies that, as I walked out of theater, I really didn't know how exactly I felt about it. It is a film that challenges perspective and really pushes the audience to develop their own interpretation of the events in the film. The Athletics in the film do not reach their ultimate goal of reaching the World Series and winning baseball's ultimate goal, but they do win 20 games in a row. Does this mean the moneyball theory worked or that it didn't? The film brilliantly poses these questions and then allows the audience themselves to interpret them. "Moneyball" will be a lot more complex than you realize walking in, but I think it will leave you enriched and happy as you walk out.
"Moneyball" receives an 8/10
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