Moneyball
Bennett Miller
The story: Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, a general manager who is trying to put together a winning baseball team with a far smaller budget compared to illustrious teams such as the New York Yankees. He is helped by Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale economics graduate with radical ideas about how to assess a player’s value.

Can Brad Pitt act?
After his turn as a sexy drifter in the road movie Thelma & Louise (1991) catapulted him to fame, the American actor seemed to fight against his pretty boy looks in order to be taken seriously.
Being anointed Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine in 1995 and 2000 probably did not help his cause, but these surely did: an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in the sci-fi flick 12 Monkeys (1995) and another for Best Actor as a man who ages in reverse in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008).
In the role of the mercurial Billy Beane, he has a second Best Actor Oscar nod, a reward for a low-key naturalistic performance when he could have been merrily chewing up scenery as a man who is not averse to flinging a chair in a moment of great frustration.
That is not to say that Pitt gives a subdued reading here. Given that the bestselling book by Michael Lewis is full of extended discussions about baseball and player statistics, it could have been a deadly dull affair, particularly for non-
baseball fans. But the screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin brings the characters alive.
Pitt imbues Beane with a certain physicality to his movements – be it munching snacks or striding down a hallway – that makes sense for a character who was a former ballplayer and also adds a sense of momentum and interest to the proceedings.
While his performance as the strict father in Terrence Malick’s polarising The Tree Of Life (2011) was not recognised at the Oscars, the acting range demonstrated by Pitt was doubtless noted by the Academy.
Also demonstrating range is director Bennett Miller, of acclaimed biopic Capote (2005), who finds a way to make a possibly arcane story about baseball statistics engaging and even compelling.
He deserves further credit for casting Judd Apatow alumnus Jonah Hill in the non-comedic role of a timid statistician, which plays off nicely against Pitt’s more earthy Beane.
Statistics aside, Moneyball is of course the universal tale of underdogs silencing the naysayers.
In this instance, Beane and Brand shake up the notion that baseball management is not a science, and use computer-generated analysis to assess players.
The point that one should have a clear-eyed view of baseball instead of a woolly and romantic one is repeatedly made by Beane. Yet in a poignant little twist at the end, the film shows that the baseball diamond is also a field of dreams for Beane.
(ST)