When this movie first surfaced I quickly dismissed it as
something that only people with a penchant for baseball and/or Brad Pitt would
be want to see, and I have no interest in either. Mr Pitt is a pleasant enough actor and has been
fortunate to have been in some very good movies, but I’ve never seen anything
beyond that. And as for baseball, well I
find that as exciting as watching Cricket, or paint drying. Nevertheless several of my friends whose tastes
I respect kept saying how fab this movie was …. and then when it got nominated
for 6 Oscars, I thought the very least I could do was to go to first base with
it.
So its based on a true story where Billy Beane, a
General Manager of failing Baseball Team comes across Peter Brand an fresh ex
Harvard grad who is whizz at analyzing statistics and making potentially outrageous
conclusions for playing strategies. This practice evidently known as sabermetrics is the search for
objective knowledge about how to stage a winning baseball game on finite historical
data, which evidentially is usually overlooked.
So going against the advice of his old entrenched Talent Scouts and
overruling his defiant and difficult Team Manger, Beane with severe financial
restrictions from his Board established a new team of oddballs that cost a fraction of his well heeled rivals.
This is Hollywood, so naturally the new Team loses
game after game, until Beane steps in beyond his job description and takes
personal charge of the players …. and guess what ….. they start winning big
time.
There is a helluva of lot of them actually playing the
game on the screen, but surprisingly enough despite my aversion to the sport, I
actually really liked the move. Not
loved it though.
Brad Pitt as Beane is the best I have ever seen him (since 'Snatch') but I cannot for the life of
me see why Jonah Hill who plays versions of himself in every role he does,
warrants a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for playing the nerdy Peter
Brand. And when it comes to casting, the
superbly talented heavyweight actor Philip Seymour Hoffman seemed wasted in the
lightweight role of put upon Manager.
So fun then, but not my idea of a home run.
★★★★★★★★
