Pitt's Home Run: "Moneyball" (2011)

It says a lot about director Bennett Miller, screenwriters Aaron Sorkin and Stephen Zaillian, and lead actor Brad Pitt, that, despite a very limited knowledge of and interest in professional sports, I found that my concentration and interest was held completely by their recent effort "Moneyball".

Miller's debut feature film was 2005's "Capote", and he earned an Oscar nomination for his intriguing direction of that picture, and here he goes in a completely different direction, materially speaking, and still manages to maintain control over the story and keep it moving in a fresh and exciting manner.  The credit does not solely belong to Miller though, as the script by Oscar winners Zaillian (Schindler's List) and Sorkin (The Social Network) was intelligent and yet entry level enough for a non-sports fan to get into the picture without feeling lost.

The picture follows the real-life experiences of Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (Pitt) as he develops a new style of teambuilding following the advice of Yale economics graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), to the chagrin of team manager Art Howe (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and nearly all of his scouts, advisors, and basically everyone else who thought he was crazy to approach the game from a purely statistical point of view.

Pitt gives a great performance, probably the best I've ever seen by the actor, never relying on his still impressive looks, but in fact playing off them as he allows all the stress and tension to show in his face and his body language.  His determination shows in the firm jaw, and the stance of a man who has made up his mind and anyone who disagrees with him may be damned.  We are treated to flashbacks of Beane's own experiences as a player, and those scenes help add weight to the work Pitt is doing.

Hill, whom I've only seen do comedy, brings humor to his role, but ultimately it is a serious role.  He is as much an outsider to the world of baseball as I was watching the film, but that objectivity allowed him to provide a way of building a team that didn't rely on experience, the history of the game, or even the love of the game; he stuck strictly to factual information and Beane took a chance that the gamble would work.

Hoffman, who is never anything less than an asset to whatever film he's in doesn't have a lot to do here, but his presence adds some toughness to the film.  Howe is an interesting character, but the screenplay does Hoffman a disservice by not offering to build the character a bit more.  He's someone I wanted to know more about, but that didn't fit the plan to tell what is essentially Beane's story.

Again, as a relative sports novice, I knew nothing of the way that the Oakland A's rebuilt their team in 2002, or just what Billy Beane and Peter Brand wrought upon the sport of baseball with their unconventional methods, but essentially the story is broader than the sports world.  It is, what film often is, the story of a man facing off against the odds to succeed, and Miller, Zaillian and Sorkin, and Pitt have all succeeded very well.