Moneyball. Rated M (coarse language). 133 minutes. Directed by Bennett Miller. Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. Based on the book by Michael Lewis.
Well-made films, that there has been a diabolical dearth of this year, are becoming increasingly rare beasts. In their place, we’ve had mostly empty-headed and soulless action flicks and laughter-less romantic comedies. A kind of Diet Cinema.
So it’s almost impossible to know whether the superbly scripted, directed, designed and acted Moneyball is really the cream-filled, strawberry jam-topped lamington it feels like – or whether it shines more luminously in comparison to most of the green bean salads we’ve been served up this year.
General Manager Billy Beane’s (Brad Pitt) baseball team, The Oakland Athletics, is failing. His best players are being poached by other clubs with offers of more money than the club’s owner can match. With the help of a super-smart mathematics nerd Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), Beane sets out to play the man, not the salary cap.
Based on a true story, Zaillian (Schindler’s List, Gangs of New York) and Sorkin’s (The Social Network, The West Wing, A Few Good Men, Sports Night) screenplay achieves the almost impossible task of making the behind-the-scenes machinations of a baseball league absolutely compelling. Focussed on personal as much as professional ambitions, Mr Miller (Capote) elicits outstanding performances from his cast – with Pitt delivering one of the least showy and most involving performances of his career.
Jonah Hill (Get Him to the Greek) is superb as his jovial baseball and software-addicted sidekick, while Chris Pratt (pictured) is equally good as Scott Hatteberg, one of the washed-up players given a second chance to shine on the team.
Ultimately, what absolutely works about Moneyball is the grand and timely theme of believing that goodness – if not greatness – can sometimes be found in people who others have discarded as worthless.
This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.
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