For the Love of the Game

Director Bennett Miller opens his behind-the-scenes baseball drama, Moneyball, with a quote from one of the game's all-time greats, Mickey Mantle: "It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you've been playing all your life." After reading it, skepticism might take hold and have you asking, "How could this prodigy think that he doesn't know a lot about baseball?" 15 minutes into the film, you'll realize there's a whole other side to America's greatest pastime that has remained unnoticed, even by hard core sports fanatics. Instead of sitting in a stadium eating a Ball Park Frank, you'll be in a movie theater getting acquainted with the curious inner workings of this ageless game.

Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is the general manager of the Oakland Athletics who's at the end of his rope. His team suffers a loss in a 2001 postseason game against the New York Yankees, three of his top players have become free agents due to expired contracts, and he can't afford any good replacements. Beane soon recruits the help of a Yale graduate in economic studies named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who has an innovative process on how to find the values in less expensive players that scouts would fail to notice. While attempting to get his team off the ground, Billy also tries to provide for his daughter Casey (Kerris Dorsey) while on a limited budget. As other people working in baseball continue to express their doubts about the future of the Oakland Athletics, Billy will show them how this new system could very well be a game-changer.

Brad Pitt's portrayal of Billy Beane is the high-flying grand slam that helps this film to score its home run. Just like a World Series game, it's exhilarating to watch. The way his character does a balancing act between being a committed coach and an affectionate father speaks a lot about Billy's priorities. One of the finest qualities of his character is that he never mopes around and feels bad about himself for being divorced, and doesn't let it cloud his mind. Billy accepts it and concentrates on the tasks at hand. His life on the field and at home are both in his view, and this translates into Pitt mastering both sides of Billy, making this one of the optimum performances of his still flourishing career.

Jonah Hill acts as Pitt's character's reassurance, promising Billy the benefits of using Peter's way of picking specific players and finding their values that have gone overlooked. His role as Peter is Billy's beginner's-guide to the system that will carry his team further than they would have ever anticipated. Hill still has that timidity in his character that we've seen in some of his other roles; but he keeps his Jonah Hill-isms to a minimum, and still manages to make us laugh on occasions when it's called for. He's just a regular guy who becomes a piece in the changing of this celebrated game.

Of course, the story focuses on the actual baseball games. But that's not entirely what the movie is about. It's about what happens backstage that's the point of intrigue in the film. How we see the science behind the figuring-out of baseball statistics makes this film as much a learning experience as it does a viewing one. Archival footage of past ball games are shown at certain points in Moneyball, and they are used to rich effect. It brings us into realization that in baseball, there is what we see on the field as spectators; but there is also what we don't see that goes on outside of the game.

Steven Zaillian's and Aaron Sorkin's screenplay, based on the 2003 book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, completely throws you into the sport. I don't watch baseball; but even if you're not a fan of the sport, I can assure you that you won't feel that same lack of interest when you experience this film. In the end, you come out of the theater with a better understanding of the game than you had walking in. It's a sports movie that's both the same as others and different from others. It has the common plotline of the coach striving for the best in his team; but it has the revealing aspect of the statistical method that was used to make a better team. The script doesn't get sidetracked with cheap sentimentality of Billy trying to get back with his wife Tara (Kathryn Morris). In fact, they only have one scene together. The story is all focused on a man trying to support his daughter, guide his team to victory and undertake a dream unfulfilled. So do as the song says, and take yourself out to this ball game.

Final grade: A