MONEYBALL

Moneyball is certainly a nice movie, but I didn't really see what all the "it's AMAZING!" fuss has been about.

The film is based on the real-life strategies of Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), who decides to forego conventional logic – and the wishes of much of his support staff – by using statistics to build his team instead of paying through the nose for high-priced, high-profile heavy hitters. Looking at the business end of an impending losing season, Beane comes by this unproven and career-endangering idea by way of nebbish Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a mild-mannered economics graduate armed with more charts, graphs and statistical analyses than you can shake a calculator at. When Peter shows Billy how to maximize his investments by stacking the A’s line-up with undervalued players, the Major League community collectively scoffs.

Until the seemingly bizarre plan actually starts working.

Unspooling in a fairly textbook, sports-movie-by-the-numbers fashion, the film – directed by Bennett Miller, co-scripted by Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian, and based on the book by Michael Lewis – is a good, but not really exceptional, underdog story that revolves around a guy trying to reconcile his unfulfilled past with the challenges of his present. A one-time big-league prospect who never really lived up to his potential, Billy’s got something to prove – to his bosses, to his ex-wife (a wildly underused Robin Wright) and his daughter (Kerris Dorsey), but mainly to himself.

And, for his part, Pitt makes for an endearing and likable, if not terribly exciting, lead. In fact, that was my main issue with his performance and the film as a whole – an overall lack of passion and intensity. Given the subject matter and the stakes involved, it was sort of underwhelming to see everything play out on a very safe, subdued and, ultimately, emotionally flat field. With only two tiny exceptions (a minor temper tantrum and a big-victory win), no one in the film ever displays any emotional intensity, good or bad. It’s like everyone is sedated and dialed down, so that no one’s at risk of standing out or really sinking his or her teeth into the material.

Jonah Hill is likewise restrained though, in his case, it works for the character, who’s meant to be sort of timid and quiet. But I kept expecting more from Pitt, and certainly from co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman, who’s a master of simmering rage and explosive outbursts. Yet, despite playing a beleaguered baseball coach (no shrinking violets, they) who’s battling for control of his team, he’s just all exasperated sighs, furrowed brows and quiet resignation. Huh??

My other problem with Moneyball (and let me be clear: I liked the movie, I just didn’t love it as much as advance buzz had me believe I would, and I really didn’t see whatever other folks thought was “Oscar-worthy” about it) was its length. At just over two hours, with often glacial pacing combined with the aforementioned lack of oomph, it felt much longer than it was. It could have been trimmed by 15 minutes and still been effective.

Or, perhaps, even more effective.