Moneyball - You Don't Have To Know What It Is.

(Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill)
(2011) ★★★★★

Frankly, I don’t enjoy watching baseball. I know nothing about it. I don’t like this game at all, but I like this baseball film very much. It’s, as a matter of fact, not really about baseball in spite of some terminologies there must be. It’s more about a man struggling to attain what matters to him out of the game, which is to win the last game of the Series and be able to keep his job and move on. You don’t have to be a baseball expert or lover to enjoy the film. You don’t even have to know what moneyball is. This film’s simply moving and thought-provoking enough to impress you even if you’re not a fan of baseball.

It’s based on a true event. Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, the General Manager for a losing baseball team, who strives to rebuild the team with limited budget after being seriously gutted. He comes across a guy named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), an Economics graduate from Yale, at a business meeting of trading players. Peter later becomes Billy’s assistant and introduces him an unconventional way of wining that is to scout undervalued players in the League and form a lineup based merely on their performance stats. Billy and Peter are inevitably challenged by those not buying it, but the rebuilt team, as a result, celebrates a 20-win streak before entering the Playoffs. Is this new approach really working? Is the 150-year-old tradition of scouting players failing? Is the game of baseball being reinvented? Is Billy getting what he’s wanted? This film would be a lousy one if there was such a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to those questions.

You may wonder, after seeing the film, if Billy’s a good GM to his employees; if he’s a loser to his daughter, his ex-wife, or anyone that knows him; why he’d listen to Peter and have faith in his theory that could probably get him fired. He seems to have been making a lot of ‘bad’ decisions. He gave up the scholarship to a famous university and took professional baseball as his first career as he thought he’d be better off that way. But then he quit playing baseball and became a scout as he felt like he wasn’t a good player at all. Now he’s a GM and putting all eggs in one basket just because he doesn’t trust his intuition anymore. He turns down probably the best opportunity to get what he’s wanted for life since he once swore he’d never again make a decision for money. He may be a loser for not being able to win the last game of the Series and get well-off, but he could be a winner for being a strong man of faith and setting an unprecedented record in American baseball history. It all depends, doesn’t it? Problem is, we all tend to remember the winner. None of us gives a damn about the first runner-up and the rest.

This film’s so well plotted and paced. There’re emotional moments and witty dialogues. Brad Pitt no longer looks handsome but his performances are exceptionally convincing and powerful. Jonah Hill is so terrific at interpreting a seemingly dumbass but very wise guy. They’ve both been nominated for this year’s Academy in Actor and Supporting Actor categories. Is Brat Pitt going to pull off? Probably not. I guess Mr. Hill has a better shot.

‘Moneyball’ is a smart film for those who keep wondering about life full of uncertainties and mysteries, of which we’re seldom aware unfortunately. We keep losing ground to reality, and grinding our dreams and faith away. We have no idea what’s the best we could get out of life itself, just like the baseball game they’ve been playing but they know very little about it!