Anyway. Moneyball. I was a bit worried about this one as a date movie, since my wife is not only not into baseball, but not even American to boot. This would sort of be like me agreeing to go watch a movie in Slovak with no subtitles. I’d be likely to understand about as much as Denisa would in the wrong sort of baseball movie.
Thankfully, this one wasn’t the wrong sort.
For those of you who don’t know, Moneyball depicts the real life endeavors of Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt), the general manager of the Oakland A’s, who decided to try and put together an unorthodox group of players using the small budget he had available, in hopes that those unorthodox players would be able to take on the big guys like the Yankees or the Red Sox. (You know, like almost every other sports movie out there.) The difference in this one is the way Beane decided to assemble the team. He used statistics instead of scouts, choosing players for their numbers and not their overall feel. A pitcher’s pitch looks really funky? So what, if it gets results. That sort of thing.
Denisa and I both really enjoyed the movie. It’s got some genuinely funny scenes, it’s well acted, and they’re able to convey the basics of what’s happening without requiring their audience to have an exhaustive knowledge of baseball. I think it succeeds in large part because it plays with the tropes of sports movies just about as much as it follows them. There are some scenes that are straight out of The Natural. Baseball certainly gets romanticized. But at the same time, Beane is essentially destroying some of the great traditions of baseball. Ignoring scouts to go with statistics, instead? Yikes!
It also helped that I think Bennett Miler (the director, nominated for an Oscar for his work on Capote) approached the movie not as a sports film, but as a film more along the line of Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network (Sorkin also contributed to the script of Moneyball). The movie is focused on Beane and his approach to baseball, not the team and their drive to win. It’s an important distinction, and it affect the entire movie–most noticeably in the ending.
In any case, I heartily recommend the film. Good quality cinema, for baseball lovers and baseball neophytes alike.
Three and a half stars.
Thanks for this review – I really want to see it, but I’m a little concerned about the language. How bad was it?
It was harsher than I expected. According to kids-in-mind (my go-to site for evaluating movie content), language is a 5 out of 10 for “about 2 F-words, 18 scatological terms (3 mild), 6 anatomical terms, 6 mild obscenities, name-calling (leper, island of misfit toys, thick around the waist, defective, clown, freak, outside your mind, cuckoo, big failure, old, waddles like a duck, goo-goo boy, crazy, dinosaurs, knucklehead, losers), 1 religious exclamation.”
Link: http://kids-in-mind.com/m/moneyball.htm
Basically, it’s got 2 f-bombs and a smattering of other words. The 2 f’s might be a deal breaker for some.
How would you rate it for sports-movie haters? Still worth watching? Even as a horse lover, I can’t stand movies about horses because they’re emotionally manipulative. I pretty much feel the same way about baseball, football, and basketball movies. So… avoid? Or will it feel refreshing to me?
Good question, Stacy. The movie still uses the manipulative approaches of past sports movies, but it also deconstructs those tropes. I wouldn’t say you should avoid this one–I think it would be worth a rental, at least. But I don’t know if I’d see it in the theater, if I were you. Too much else out there to enjoy if you’re not a sports movie fan.