Top CelebStoners Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill star in Moneyball. It's a David vs. Goliath story set in Oakland, where the A's front office decides to shake up baseball. Watch the trailer below
Bennett Miller's adaptation of Michael Lewis' book begins in 2001 with the A's losing to the Yankees in the playoffs. Because Oakland is a small-market team, they lose several players (Jason Giambi, Jason Isringhausen) after the season to richer teams like the Yankees and Cards. Rebuffed by the A's owner when he asks for more money to pay for high-priced players, general manager Billy Beane (Pitt) embraces a new statistical philosophy (Bill James' sabermetrics) and restocks the team instead with lesser-knowns.
When Beane hires Peter Brand (Hill) to be his stat guru and trusted assistant, the veteran scouts don't like it one bit.
The central conflicts in Moneyball are old-school vs. new-school and haves and have-nots. The Yankees have, the A's don't. But with higher intellect and computer programs they just may be able to level the playing field. The 2002 season doesn't start well, but soon the team jells and runs off an improbable winning streak that peaks at 20, setting the American League record (the Cubs won 21 in a row in 1935). It's the highlight of the movie, with Beane and Brand's handpicked first-baseman Scott Hatteberg (Parks and Recreation's Chris Pratt) getting the climactic knock.
Beane, a former manager leaguer who never lived up to his promise, is wound pretty tight. The mercurial GM likes to throw phones and knock over table. (He could use some recreational marijuana.) The sheepish Brand (based on Paul DePodesta, who currently works for the Mets) is Beane's yang - a baseball nerd with a Yale diploma. Like in Get Me to the Greek, Hill plays the schleppy sideback to the glamorous lead - no one does it better.
But it's Pit's movie - he's the maverick shaking up baseball. Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillion's script includes Beane's family back story - divorced (from Sharon, played by Robin Wright) with a young daughter who sings and plays the guitar. He stays in great shape, but his entire life is baseball; no new girlfriends in this Beane story.
Baseball heads will enjoy the inside talk, especially Beane's frenetic phone calls with other GMs proposing trades, or the art of releasing players, which Hill plays for laughs, or even better, Beane's running battle with obstinate manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman). There isn't a lot of actual live baseball, but just enough and what there is looks realistic.
Moneyball shines a light on the inequities of the national pastime and how creative solutions are as valuable as money itself.
