MONEYBALL

This is an atypical baseball movie.  For one thing, there's not very much baseball in it.  It's about using superior statistical analysis to build a better team.  But there's actually not a whole lot of statistics in the movie either.  It's more about the riskiness and culture clash that comes from attempting to reinvent the game.  One of the best scenes is just Brad Pitt and some old dude arguing 'politely' in a hallway, with unbearable and hateful tension bubbling to the surface so palpably that the viewer is almost certain that the two will tear into each other at any moment.  But they don't.  This isn't that kind of movie.  Sure, Brad Pitt throws lots of chairs when he's mad, but this movie isn't about the triumph of violence; it's about the triumph of numbers.

This film was almost as unconventional as the material it presents.  Steven Soderbergh was originally attached to direct, but he had a very different film in mind.  He cast Pitt as Beane, and Demetri Martin as Peter DePodesta, but envisioned using as many real participants as possible, including players, scouts, and reporters, and shooting the whole film in a pseudo-documentary style, complete with talking head interviews.

But three days before production began, Sony pulled the plug and drastically reshaped the project.  Gone was the documentary format, replaced with a more traditional 'hero's journey' narrative courtesy of Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zallian.  Demetri Martin also left with Soderbergh (turning up in his Contagion) and was replaced by Jonah Hill as the now fictionalized Peter Brand.  And almost all the parts are now played by actors, and not the actual people.

So it's a shame that we didn't get a film that tried to reinvent the sports movie in same way Moneyball reinvented scouting and team-building, but this movie is still entertaining with an offbeat somber musical score and a generally elegiac tone.  The is only director Bennett Miller's second film but he handles the various montages of numbers effectively, with a flurry of visual information effectively balanced with voice-overs explaining the relevant statistical techniques at work.

Many of the best scenes are simply Pitt and Hill playing off each other.  Stuck in an office, negotiating numerous deals across multiple phone lines with the help of a secretary off screen, Pitt and Hill prove quite the comedic duo.  Pitt plays Beane as the epitome of cocksure, whilst Hill plays Brand as a wide-eyed innocent who's only sure about the numbers, but those numbers by God he is damn sure about those.  It's not the type of humor you normally expect in a sports film but it works great and also highlights the theme of unconventionality.

Brad Pitt has some pretty pointless scenes with his ex-wife and her new husband, but mostly, with his middle school aged daughter.  Ice cream sundaes, impromptu guitar sing-a-longs, and a father telling his daughter that she'll die in a plane crash; wrong movie, guys.  How on earth these scenes stayed in the movie is beyond me.  The film already runs over two hours, so if ever there was a time for a meddling executive to barge in and dictate judicious pruning, this was that time.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman has a small and almost unnecessary part as Art Howe.  Hoffman won his Oscar in the title role of director Bennett Miller's previous film Capote which probably explains his appearance here.  Hoffman is a modern day master of supporting roles, from The Talented Mr. Ripley to Charlie Wilson's War, but his contribution to the story here feels like it could have been eliminated to bring the budget/run time down.

You're certainly not going to see any more sports-statistics movies anytime soon, let alone a straight statistics movie, so this film is enjoyably unique even when it feels pat, predictable or pre-conceived.

  
~ If you want a movie that is about the triumph of violence, well gosh, where to begin?

~ Based on the book by Michael Lewis.

~ Co-writer Aaron Sorkin is a household name, but what about co-writer Steve Zallian?  Well he should be, considering he wrote Schindler's List, Clear And Present Danger, Gangs Of New York, American Gangster and he also wrote and directed Searching For Bobby Fischer and A Civil Action.  Talk about an over-achiever.

~ The great cinematographer Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight) shot this film, replacing the original Director of Photography Adam Kimmel, who was arrested in Connecticut on sexual assault and weapons and explosives possession charges.  Talk about an over-achiever.