I enjoyed this.  Enjoyed it a lot.  It had its issues, but this is a really nice movie.  

So in the MLB you have teams like the Yankees and Red Sox who have unlimited supplies of cash and buy all of the star players.  Then you have everyone else, then 50 feet of crap, then you have the Oakland A's, as proclaimed by Brad Pitt portraying General Manager Billy Beane.  As a fan of the A's (yes, I root for the Giants and A's), I found this movie fascinating because I followed those moneyball era teams from their inception in the late 90s to their decline of a few years ago, so it was like watching the action all over again.  

The film is dialogue heavy on baseball terminology, statistics, and players, so likewise it was kind of funny to see guys like Jeff Tam and Jeremy Giambi portrayed on the big screen.  The writing is snappy - flows well from one scene to another, has some inserted clever humor, and it creates some good characters that are enjoyable to watch.  

However, there were two issues I had.  While the characters I found to be interesting and engaging, they didn't have a lot of depth.  Granted, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill (seriously, I thought I was gonna hate his character but he did a terrific job IMO), and Phillip Seymour Hoffman put forth terrific performances, but their stories seemed one dimensional.  Jonah Hill is this quiet numbers guy who remains a quiet numbers guy.  Hoffman portrays manager Art Howe, who's against all of Billy Beane's moves and wants a contract extension...and that's it.  Billy Beane turns down a ton of money from the Red Sox which shows his dedication to his moneyball strategy, but the subplot with his family wasn't as involved as I would have liked.  

The other thing is that this film is very Hollywood in the sense that they made the 2002 Oakland A's out to be ridiculous underdogs prior to the season's start, even though they weren't.  The first part of the film focuses on the loss of Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen to free agency, three key players, but the thing is while that did suck, it's not like the A's were left with nothing.  They had one of the best, if not the best, starting pitching staffs in the league with Hudson, Zito, and Mulder (and Lidle making up a notable 4th) and had Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez both coming off 30 HR/100 RBI seasons (not to mention Jermaine Dye, an '01 midseason acquisition, had 106 RBIs himself).  Yeah, losing Giambi sucked, but they still had 3 returning 100 RBI guys.  Damon's season in Oakland was the worst of his career and Isringhausen was a fine closer, but unspectacular.   Yeah, there was worry about losing those 3, especially Giambi, but they still had a core of solid young players which this flick failed to touch on.  

However, I take this movie for what it was and understand the angle it was going for; that this team built on developing players and not spending absurd amounts of money can still compete - and it did.  The '01 and '02 A's could have won the World Series but it was judgmental and mental errors that did them in.  In a way I think this movie expresses an unspoken truth about that with all of the squabbles the various levels of management have.  

So it's a fun movie.  Well written and well acted and flowed at a quick pace.  Even if you're not into baseball I think it still has a lot to offer with its intellect and wit.  I highly recommend.

I am not much of a baseball fan.
So, I went into this story green for the most part.
All I really knew was that Beane didn't take the job in Boston.

Given the tumultuous nature of the production, I enjoyed the film even more.
Soderbergh was let go over creative differences.
Apparently, he wanted to take a more documentary approach to the material.
That didn't sit too well with the rest of the creative forces involved.

So, enter the director of Capote and here we are.
Zaillian and Sorkin are a solid one-two punch for the script.
It's crisp and gives us brief intimate slices into many lives affected by the team.

While it may not be the most emotional or complete story, it is about the idea.
The idea that Beane could change how the game was played.
And, in turn, learn how to play his life the right way to get the rewards he wants.

No one declares their philosophy and desires through expository drivel.
We have a bunch of guys all looking for essentially the same thing.
But how we go about achieving our desires is what separates us from the rest.

Work with what you got and quit belly aching, there's no crying in baseball!

Imminently watchable and loaded with nuanced performances.
It won't set the world on fire, but I wasn't bored for a moment.

E.D.

Baseball "sucks". A glorified game of rounders to many Brits that long ago gave way to proper sport. We largely view it as an occasion to pop a hotdog, a beer and to sing a song you all sing.

OK. So with my tongue now removed from my cheek, I'll simply say: it wasn't an entirely compelling proposition to watch without the hype, a leading man chiselled from charisma, a recent Oscar winning screenwriter who humbly paid tribute to the genius that was Network, and a suitably fantastic trailer. But I'm glad I did. At heart this is a movie about aspiration. Something we can all relate to. Not knowing (or ever wanting to know) anything about Baseball, it was natural there would be a universal theme necessary to hook a wider audience. The intricacies of the game will pass most viewers by. That was a problem circumvented by a seemingly underappreciated (if we judge by hype) performance by Brad Pitt. It shocks me that nobody is mentioning this as one of the best performances of his career. Granted, it's not as noticeable as that of Fight Club but carries more weight with its subtlety.

One of the successes of this movie was how it depicted the travails of reaching your goal (or not quite as they didn't win the laughably named "World Series") and how the journey is fraught with moments of am I actually insane or am I actually a genius. They talked up confidence and that was a simple but effective commentary overplaying that effortlessly explained one of the critical elements of success.

Whilst I was happy enough with the sentiment of the ending, the execution seemed a little haphazard. It felt as though it went through a chop and change in clarifying the core message and it was a huge disappointment to see this deeply engrossing and enjoyable movie limp to the final credits.