Ryan McNeil
“It’s hard not to get romantic about baseball”
For me, truer words were never spoken. It’s the first sport I watched as a child, it’s the first sport I learned how to play. It has an elegance, a pace, and an imperfect nature that are all unique amongst professional sports. It’s hard not to get caught up in it and turn into a blubbering romantic…but somehow MONEYBALL finds a way to sidestep that romance.
MONEYBALL takes us back to the fall of 2001, where The Oakland A’s came this close to knocking The New York Yankees out of the playoffs – a team that was spending almost $100M more in player salaries than Oakland was. After the heartbreaking loss, Oakland’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) must face another hard reality: Three of his top players are about to take their talents elsewhere for a considerably higher payday.
His roster gutted, and no more money available in the coffers to rebuild it, Beane begins to get frustrated with the old-school manner that his scouts are sizing up talent, and the inequity of a league that will allow teams to outspend other teams rather than just outplay them. He slowly realizes that if he wants to stand any chance of winning, he’ll have to think different. Enter Peter Brand (Jonah Hill).
Pete is an Ivy League grad working as a low level suit with The Cleveland Indians. When he realizes that Brand measures talent differently than every other suit and scout he’s met, Beane quickly steals him away from Cleveland and gives him a high-profile job with Oakland.
Brand, you see, isn’t interested in building a team by buying players – he’s interested in building it by buying runs. Sure, runs can come in the form of the ball being clocked four hundred feet away by one stud player…but Brand points out that there are other ways to get runs…ways that other teams might not be considering. And that might just be the edge that Beane needs.
Throughout much of MONEYBALL, a point of contention between Beane and manager Art Howe (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is that Howe feels he cannot win with the team he has been given, but Beane disagrees and stresses that Howe needs to use the tools he’s been given. This idea, of having everything you need to succeed, and yet not being able to execute sums up the experience of watching MONEYBALL to a tee. The pieces are all there: A charismatic star, a proven director, a pair of Oscar winning screenwriters, and a complexed story of an underdog that achieves something extraordinary. However, if the 25-man roster of MONEYBALL had a manager, he wasn’t playing the team the way it was built.
For starters, MONEYBALL is an odd concept to turn into a film. It’s not really the story of a team that somehow rallied together as it is the story of a bunch of baseball suits who tried to look at something traditional in a new way. In some ways, it’s baseball’s SOCIAL NETWORK – a bunch of misfits standing around talking…and what they talk about changes the way things are done. However, a story this subtle still needs to pop, and unfortunately between the film’s direction and its editing, there is no pop to be had. The direction is flat, and far too interested in showing us shots of Beane staring off into nothing as he thinks. The direction isn’t helped any by the editing, which takes its sweet time getting in and out of scenes, and doesn’t give the dialogue any lift.
So if the direction and editing are striking out, perhaps the big bats the actors are swinging can put some runs on the board for this film. No such luck, as all three main players – Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Phil Seymour Hoffman – sleepwalk through the film. Pitt is trying something different with his portrayal of Billy Beane – he appears to be trying to downplay everything about himself. His looks, his charisma, his speech pattern…everything we have come to associate with Brad Pitt has been dialed down to the minimum. This isn’t a bad thing, after all: Billy Beane ain’t no Brad Pitt. However, there’s a world of difference between downplaying and underplaying, and Pitt underplays so badly, that the film might have been better off casting Billy Beane to play himself.
Jonah Hill does an admirable job of letting go of his usual manic antics, but he too is underused. Not only does he fail to properly explain the advantage of a player being able to continually get on base, but he fails to expand upon the tools that Oakland still has at their disposal. Part of the Moneyball Philosophy that is glossed over in this film, is the fact that it is reliant on teams being able to build from within. The team in this movie didn’t just succeed because of the ragamuffin squad Brand and Beane built…they also succeeded because of a core of great young talent.
What could have made MONEYBALL great, is the fact that it’s not entirely a sports story. It’s a story about trying to succeed by finding a new way to accomplish a desired result. It wants us to remember that there’s more than one way to win…and that sometimes, even if you lose, ultimately you still win. All of that is in this muddy effort somewhere, and I can’t help but wonder that of the film had been a bit less deliberate in its pacing, if it might have sold those messages for all they are worth.
Indeed it’s hard not to get romantic about baseball…but eventually, with time and with experience, you realize that there are cold, calculated moves behind everything that happens on and off the field. Slowly, the brushwork gets wiped away and you realize it’s all paint by numbers. Unfortunately, in the case of MONEYBALL, it couldn’t even follow the numbers, and instead we’re left with a muddy-looking mess.
Comparing it to The Social Network was really helpful. I still hope to enjoy this film.
Do check it out – I’ll be curious to know what you think.
Did you really not like Pitt in this? I keep reading from other reviews that this is his best performance ever.
Saying I didn’t like him in this is a bit drastic, I’m more in the mindset that he’s wasted.
Those who think this is one of his best performances ever should probably go back and rewatch 12 MONKEYS, JESSE JAMES, FIGHT CLUB, BENJAMIN BUTTON, BURN AFTER READING, and BABEL
I never perceived MONEYBALL as a baseball film, but as a subtle character study of Beane and his attempt to change the game he once loved, simultaneously battling his own personal demons.
Plenty of your points are valid and I do feel many critics are over-praising this, but its a solid, intelligent little film.
Check out my review when you get the time.
As for romance in baseball … We’ll always have Bull Durham.
That’s what I went in looking for… a character piece.
And yet there is so little character to this film…
I don’t feel pike I know any more about the character of Billy Beane now than I did before the film began…and at that point I only knew the slightest bit about him.
I’m beginning to believe that the critics who flipped over this movie knew nothin about baseball going in, so the evolution of the Moneyball concept is seducing them.
Think we covered this enough in the podcast but you said it best with this “However, if the 25-man roster of MONEYBALL had a manager, he wasn’t playing the team the way it was built.”
It could have done with a player to be named later.
I liked this movie a lot more than you did, and yes, the first thing that came to mind was also Sorkin’s THE SOCIAL NETWORK screenplay. I will give you this, that if there is a problem here it is in the direction, but really, the performances, screenplay and overall drama of the picture easily paper over the pedestrian directing. I now pine to see what Soderbergh’s ideas were that got him fired from the project, because I bet you he would have taken a less flash-back-to-explain approach and probably did something a bit punchier….
Still a very good fall movie, and one of the better baseball movies.
(Oh, and when did Brad Pitt start looking like Benicio Del Toro? I swear, there are a few almost dead-ringer shots in this movie. Weird.
Were I more masochistic, I’d campaign to argue this film on The Cinecast. But even I don’t fancy a three-on-one argument.
I can see why people are enjoying this film but the overwhelming love still baffles me.
Part of me is probably ignoring the “No one claims it’s a documentary” defense and getting too hung up on inaccuracies.
Ryan, I thought this was the best movie about sports that I have seen. The performances were subtle and nuanced—which you call “underplays so badly”—(even Jonah Hill, which, frankly…amazed). This movie had some of my favorite moments of the year so far, that were sly and ecstatic.
You argue that people/critics who like this “know nothing about baseball going in.” Not kind. And not accurate, as far as I’m concerned. You are right when you say that it’s not really about baseball—maybe that’s what you’re missing, more baseball action (in which case, pffft), it’s about playing…especially the hand you’re dealt, and maximizing the potential. And Beane’s arc is about realizing that the struggle and angst required to do that…IS STILL A PART OF A GAME—which it is his cross to bear that he can’t enjoy it, or relax enough with the responsibility to find the athletic grace to succeed…except as a manager (which he doesn’t realize or acknowledge).
What did you do, Ryan…watch this movie on the radio…or actually go the theater?
I would submit that you were too close to the subject to enjoy the movie…which makes you oddly akin to Beane in the movie. Maybe you should see it again…so, instead of seeing what the movie ISN’T, you can see what the movie IS.
Guess what comment just turned up! Let’s take this one step at a time…
You mention great sports movies – where great baseball movies are concerned, I go to BULL DURHAM. There’s a film that’s not really “about baseball”, but still uses the game’s nuances to underline the romance and friendship that the film is is about.
You mention that MONEYBALL has some of your favorite moments of the year. Do tell – which moments were those?
I don’t say that people entanced by this film “know nothing about baseball” to be unkind. Hell, there are lots of people whose opinion I respect that know nothing about baseball. The reason I brought up the point, is that if a person hasn’t heard about the concept of using the numbers to build a baseball team, this story will play with more novelty. For someone like me though who knows every cause and effect the statistical analysis will argue is sitting there going “I already know about OBS – Entertain me”.
I didn’t want more baseball action to pad out this film – that wasn’t what i went in looking for. Where I have issue with the film is in its narrative arc, its direction, its writing, and especially in its editing.
Your point about Beane’s arc is a little unclear. What i will say about Beane’s arc is that I wanted him to be more of a catalyst within the story instead of reacting to what his scouts were saying, what Peter was saying, what was happening on the field, what John Henry is offering. It’s his story and it almost felt like he was watching it happen instead of living it.
He gets an amazing moment with David Justice at the batting cage where he tells him to lead the team by not leading the team. Give me more of that – less of him throwing furniture around.
And as nostalgic as I am for growing up listening to Blue jays games on the radio, no I did not listen to this film by radio (funny though!).
It is quite possible that i am too close to this subject to enjoy the movie (which was really what I was trying to get at when I said that those who know nothing going in will get more from it). The funny thing is, I’ve mentioned before that watching a film the second time around allows one a chance to sink deeper into it since you can ease off on following the narrative and focus on the details.
I already knew the narrative – it was the details that let me down.