Moneyball

Normally with Retro Reviews, I'm compelled to watch something that has been a "blemish" on my Unseen List for a while. 

Surprisingly, I haven't done a Retro Review of a film I'd already fully seen (aka: one of my favorites) since Inglourious Basterds last October, coincidentally also starring Brad Pitt. 

Who knew? October (when I watched Moneyball this last weekend) must be the Season of the Pitt!

Moneyball came out the year I began this whole endeavor of Rath's Reviews, but before I started reviewing within that year. Despite that, I find it strange I've never seen it given the positive reception it gained that year and the impressive longevity its impact seems to have had with audiences. Hell, even at DaVita (where I work professionally) I've seen clips of key moments used in large group settings to inspire and get people thinking. 

Moneyball is one of those films where I totally "get it" now. Aside from a lackluster ending that seems to not know how to wrap things up, this is an engaging motion picture that features highly interesting subject matter. I was thoroughly entertained - as I imagine many were back in 2011 - and the added star power of the cast gives it extra "wow" factor. 

On paper, Moneyball doesn't have the most exciting premise perhaps. It's about a formal baseball player turned GM, Billy Beane (Pitt) who manages the Oakland Athletics. They're one of the smaller markets for baseball and find it hard to compete year-over-year with a payroll for players a fraction the cost of other teams like the Yankees. They consistently find good talent, who become stars, and then leave for more money elsewhere. Coming from Denver, I find this to be annoyingly true and frustrating for most of our franchises (except probably the Broncos). To most stars, Denver feels like a "small" market and for reasons that I can't fathom seems like an undesirable location when held up against the California, New York, Texas, or Florida teams. Sorry...but I'd live in CO any day of the year against those options. It's odd too because Denver has mostly loyal fanbases who have consistent attendance. In particular - and yes, I realize this is a tangent - I worry about the current Denver Nuggets because they're so close to a championship that it means we'll attract talent, but we'll have a small window (as most small teams do) to win with the talent and budget they currently have. Suffice this long winded paragraph to say that I found great interest in Moneyball once Jonah Hill's Peter Brand comes to help the A's with statistics and different dynamics than most scouts look for. His approach shakes up the team - and the game - which adds a lot of unique drama and tension as the experiment to try and boil players down to essentially a single number pans out.

"Someday, people won't know you for your comedic ability, Jonah.
They'll see you for the ACTOR you really are!"

COVID-arena from 2011

Moneyball is continuously captivating because of the stars involved and the great Aaron Sorkin script they get to work with (tying it back to a review from a few weeks ago). Pitt, as usual, is effortlessly cool as the ex-player Billy Beane. In most moments of the film, nothing seems to chip away at him, even when it feels like the team is falling apart. Pitt's performance is more nuanced than that however, as you begin to see the small cracks of pressure (and Beane's future career) appear. Pitt feels like he's been a baseball GM his whole life here and it reminded me of his recent "cool guy" performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (though the films are obviously different). Jonah Hill - one of his earlier "serious" roles that we're more used to by now, can play co-pilot to Pitt with ease and it's likely this film that made him such an obvious choice for something like Wolf of Wall Street. Brand is a quiet, but very smart and influential character and Hill has a compelling balance of power and naivety about him, not to mention the chemistry with Pitt is stellar once they meet. And each of them get plenty of opportunity to utilize the strong script that - while it doesn't fire as quickly as some of his other's - still packs a lot of energy into scenes that would otherwise have very little (i.e. talking about baseball statistics and no-name players). There are others in the film - mainly a young Chris Pratt and Phillip Seymour Hoffman - who do perfectly fine, but Pitt and Hill own the movie nearly the whole way. 

Prefaced in my earlier paragraph, the only thing disappointing about Moneyball is the ending that feels dragged out and confused on how it wants to end. Its ending isn't the happiest - the Oakland A's have still yet to win a World Championship using this methodology - and to a certain extent it seems to suggest that having a more stats-focused approach has made the big-market players even better, stretching their exorbitant payrolls further. That's unfortunate because a film this well directed, paced, edited, and scored (the music is rare, but effective) could have used a more definitive ending, even if the real life story is short of a feel-good moment. 

The Season of Pitt, much like Inglourious Basterds last year, has delivered once again. Moneyball has very few shortcomings and is one of those movies you watch that is just easy to become engrossed in. I think it interests even non baseball and non statistics fans because of the talent involved, but it's the excitement, drama, and sometimes humor that pans out to make a film that has stood the course of time over the last decade. 

CONS

• The original score is touching...not sure why it wasn't used more often!
• Stumbles on the ending. It's a tricky thing to do given the real life story never has reached the desired destination (yet)
• Stuff with Beane's daughter feels shoehorned in

PROS

• Outside of the ending, it has stellar pacing and editing - moving forward at a fast, engaging clip
• Smart script that doesn't fire as fast as Sorkin's others, but it works better here that way
• Pitt's Beane and Hill's Brand have tight chemistry and deliver surface level "cool" performances that have more nuance the further you get into the film
• Consistently intriguing subject matter. This is something that deserves extra praise because, on paper, stats aren't going to get people excited, but the way the film creates drama from it keeps the viewer watching
• Outside of having interesting subject matter - this is just an entertaining film for a lot of reasons listed above. The grade-A cast and script help to make this something special

Retro Rath's Review Score | 9/10