Moneyball: Review

By Spence Blazak

Mr. Long, the father of Wookiee Wednesday contributors Brian and Peter, has seen three movies in the last fifteen years: Titanic, Frost/Nixon, and now Moneyball. He hates going to the movies almost as much as he hates dogs (he once said that his memoir will be called Dogs: I Just Don’t Get It…with emphasis on the colon). Yet, he gave his most recently seen film a review of “very good!” My viewing companions and I were dumb founded.

I think that little anecdote sums up Moneyball’s brilliance, but I love to make all of my articles five pages long, so bear with me.

Moneyball begins the night the Oakland Athletics were swept by the Yankees in the 2001 ALDS. Since the Yankees have the power of Lucifer and sacrificed babies in their bats, it’s no surprise to anyone that this has happened. But how did the A’s get that far in the first place? They have everything working against them: the lowest payroll in baseball, they don’t have many fans, and the players (stay with me) have to pay for their own Pepsi products! OH THE HUMANITY!

This is where Brad Pitt comes in, playing Billy Beane, General Manager of Cokeland’s finest. He had been playing moneyball, getting cheap players that seemed crappy when in reality they are excellent hitters disguised by unorthodox styles.

For all of you following my “Softknocks” blog posts, Billy Beane has been my role model as a GM since I read the book Moneyball over the summer. Sadly, my translation of his ideas to hire unathletic players for my team hasn’t worked out yet… He is a beacon of hope for any man’s man, and Brad Pitt plays him exactly the way he should: constantly walking on the line between foolishly cocky and brilliantly confident. The key to any great underdog story is admiring the canine himself, and Brad Pitt wins you over within his first three minutes on screen.

The supporting cast is stellar as well. Chris Pratt makes Scott Hatteberg the perfect embodiment of the team itself (a washed up former star who can’t throw the ball due to nerve damage), and plays up his humble, soft spoken persona with the expertise of a seasoned actor. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance as Manager Art Howe is hilariously deadpan as the face of the A’s who takes heat from the media for having players who seem so crappy, when in reality it was all Billy. Jonah Hill reaffirms the point he made in last year’s Cyrus that he has the acting chops to keep up with the best around. His timing and delivery is John Candy-esque.

The movie is filmed beautifully and every shot looks semi sepia-toned. Bennett Miller hasn’t directed a movie since Capote, and it has been well worth the wait. The sports scenes are authentic, and he integrates archival footage in one of the best ways I’ve seen in recent memory. He also milks the humor out of awkwardness in a way that brings to mind the old, great episodes of The Office.

Aaron Sorkin, the patron saint of the modern screenplay, writes the script, and the snappy dialogue brings to mind his most recent great work The Social Network. It’s the closest thing to a sequel I’ll ever get….I liked that movie way too much. While the script has a few bland spots that suffer from pacing problems, Sorkin’s refreshing lack of clichés easily makes up for it and then some.

Moneyball is one of my favorite books, and my philosophy on adaptations is that the book should have no factor into the movie’s merit. Regardless, Sorkin picks and chooses the most essential parts of the book, and doesn’t lose any of the intended “feel”. Sure, I would have liked to see the riveting back story of Chad Bradford, but does that really matter in the long run? Some readers thought the book suffered for its extensive breakdowns of the sabremetric method that Billy used to pick the right players, and the choice was well made to merely mention it a few times rather than give a lecture on it.

Sadly, the movie falls short of perfection in a few ways. Along with the somewhat buzz killing pacing problems, Moneyball features the worst “Cheer Up Charlie” moment since its namesake. In 2007, Peter Long coined the phrase in reference to the song in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where Charlie’s mom sings the 35-minute ballad to him to cheer him up. It is the worst part of an otherwise great movie.

There is a scene where Billy’s daughter sings for him. Everything just stops, and she sings for 3 and a half minutes. It is one of those lame, breathy acoustic songs that is usually found in an Apple commercial. Yuck. And the metaphor of the song is so heavy handed that I had to have Mr. Long hold me back from pouring my Sprite all over my pants.

Over all, Moneyball will be the best thing that hybrid movie/baseball fans have seen since Major League, and baseball haters might even find a respect for the game because of it. If a 1 star inspiring sports movie is Rocky V, and a 4 star one is Rudy, then I will proudly give Moneyball a 3-and-a-half star review.