QMR Opinion: Moneyball (2011)

Moneyball (2011)


Bottomline: Good movie but not as good as you have heard.

Suprising Note: There is a lot more humor in the movie than I had anticipated. It’s very funny.

Surprising Note #2: Jonah Hill is really good.

Where Can I See This Movie? It’s in theaters right now.

Better Baseball Movies? Bull Durham (1988) and Major League (1989)

The Best Sports Movie of All Time? Want to see a grown man tear up? Then pop Hoosiers (1986) into the DVD player. "I love you guys."

QMR Opinion: Moneyball tells the story of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and the Oakland A’s as they try to compete with larger market and more monied baseball teams. Beane decides he must do things in a non-traditional manner so he hires Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) to help him use statistics to find under-valued players and put together an inexpensive team that will take the A’s to the World Series. This is based on a true story using the book of the same name as inspiration. Overall, this is a good film but it is not anywhere as good as you’ve heard from other reviewers. It suffers from the same criticism that the game of baseball does – it drags. A good editor would have tightened the pacing on this movie and made it move along at a much more manageable and enjoyable clip. Instead, we have lots of scenes of Pitt sitting. Pitt thinking. Pitt exercising. Pitt driving. Then there are close-ups of Pitt doing these things. The most enjoyable moments of the film come primarily when Pitt and Hill are interacting and playing off one another. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays baseball manager Art Howe and I have no idea why he’s in the movie. Hoffman adds nothing and delivers about a dozen lines total. Among my favorite scenes are the ones with Beane in the room with the scouts -- it's old school vs. new school.