Director: Bennett Miller
Year Released: 2011
Rating: 3.0
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) joins forces with a Yale-educated economist (Jonah Hill) to use statistics (sabermetrics!) to build a successful baseball club on a budget and compete with the Big Spenders in Major League Baseball. At the risk of sounding condescending, this is just a really well-made, Hollywood-ized feel good movie about underdogs that Hollywood isn't always successful at making: Pitt (despite being Brad Pitt) successfully pulls off the Noble Loser role with ease (he was a mediocre ball player, his marriage failed, his club house is so cheap they charge players for soda, his barebones office looks like it belongs in a factory), and Miller (with a script from Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin) keeps his approach simple and accessible. Phillies GM Ruben Amaro, Jr. claims this is unrealistic (I'm a Phillies fan, by the way), but it's not supposed to be completely realistic - it's supposed to show you there's honor in caring about a game even if you're not the best at it.
