It's an unfair game. We're organ donors for the rich.
Do you surrender to a moment of awestruck silence as you come through the portal
to catch first sight of the ball field no matter how many times you've seen it
before? You will love Moneyball. So will everybody else. Writers Steven
Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, and director Bennett Miller have tackled the transition
of the game from its honored past to its plunge into the big money game. And
here's the best news - their story is funny, tough, tender, and true.
It is 2001,
and general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) slouches alone in the stadium to
brood about his team's poor standing and even worse prospects. Facing the loss
of three of their best players, the Oakland A's must rebuild their team on a
budget of $38 million dollars. The Yankees are pushing the pieces of their
puzzle around with $128 million at their disposal. "It's an unfair game, we're
organ donors for the rich," Billy says of the way the rich teams gather up the
best players from the teams who can't afford raises. They play in the same
ballparks but can't sit equally at the trading tables.
Those tables
are the gathering spots for the old time scouts who measure talent by the
traditional strengths of a baseball star. Visiting one of these trading tables,
Billy catches a quick eye contact transaction between the Cleveland general
manager and an employee sitting in the corner. Later on, he approaches the
mystery man and asks "Who are you?" The quiet fellow in the corner who has the
boss's ear is Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale economics major with a permanent
attachment to the laptop that has given him the tools to transform team
building.
Pete's theory
posits that he can build a team of 25 low cost players that other teams don't
want from a pool of unrecognized strengths. The catcher's arm no longer allows
him to throw? Teach him to play first base. He can't hit? How many times does he
walk to first base? A player with quiet presence whose team seems to win when
he's on the field? It's a metaphor for Billy's own failure in his playing days.
He had all the strengths - excepting Pete's x-factor. Suddenly Pete has made the
A's budget big enough for rebuilding. Together, they make a three stage plan:
The theory, the test of a playing season, the win/loss result. Statistics with
heart.
Brad Pitt's
Billy Beane is all sharp edges and determination. Jonah Hill's Pete is the
essence of the thinking nerd who is changing one piece of the world with the
tools he has mastered. He's all deference and numbers until he blossoms under
Billy's intuitive recognition. Good writers abound here, but Aaron Sorkin's
fingerprints are all over the crackling script. With a strong supporting cast
and a great story, Pitt and Hill create two characters so interesting that they
hit the movie right out of the park.
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