Be the Moneyball

Brad Pitt stars in a recently-released movie, Moneyball, about a GM who forces athletes to become a successful team regardless of how small their salaries are when compared to the rest of the professional league players. The Oakland Athletics is a team that cannot compete with the high salaries paid to players by other baseball teams, and an owner who has no intention of tossing more money into the pot to improve that status.

Pitt plays former pro player Billy Beane, the A's GM who crosses paths with a recent college grad who not only understands the statistical basis for a pro teams’ success, but explains it in terms Billy also understands. Together, they move players like chess pieces around the diamond to create a team that wins 20 games in a row to set a new record, pissing off the coach in the process. Rather than firing his ass and moving on with someone else in his place -- which really needs to happen as the film wastes about 12 minutes belaboring this one point -- Pitt has to force the coach to do his bidding by firing players in the process of suiting up for tonight's game.

Pitt is okay, but not much more than that, as the camera comes far too close to create the appearance of mental cognition, resulting in camera angles that capture more Beau Bridges than Pitt: the whisker stubble, the jowly cheeks, and the well-defined aging facial features belie the usually good looking Pitt. His financial geek side-kick is fat, wears glasses and unfashionable, ill-fitting clothes off the rack, and is an unassuming Hollywood “geek” stereotype that has been featured in far too many roles lately. Cannot geeks be good-looking, personable, interesting, appropriately dressed, and socially engaged? Guess not if you’re in charge of Hollywood casting.

The premise of the movie is based in fact, but the film is more ponderous than pithy, more sluggish than sluggers, with characters who expectorate far too often. At the two-hour mark, I was tired, tired, tired of all the long looks that substituted for acting, all of the excruciating close-ups that aged Pitt well beyond his prime, all of the contemplative long looks that took the place of action, and the close-ups of tobacco being spit into paper cups. The side story of Beane's divorce, wife's remarriage, and his personal longing to be a father to his daughter, demonstrated by prolonged longing looks, is nothing more than a distraction that elongates a movie that really, really does not need to be made longer.

This film easily could have 30 minutes cut without resulting in anything other than a better finished product. If the story has value, then tell it and move on; don’t belabor the littlest points in an effort to justify the lead actor’s salary, such as showing him driving around and around in circles, rather than showing up at the stadium and risk jinxing the team. It works once, but it doesn’t work all the other times it's included in the film.

This is not a film I would see again, but it’s okay to see once as a rental. Feel free to take a bathroom break: you won’t miss anything while you’re out of the theater. While you're at it, stand in a long line and stock up on snacks: you should get back into your seat in plenty of time to see the end of the film which, by the way, turns out just as you expect.