User reviews

I watched this on TV finally in November 2013. I am puzzled why anyone thinks highly of this dull film with no likable characters. The film shows how the Oakland Athletics ) won a division title in 2002, despite losing three star players after 2001. It focuses almost solely on general manager Billy Beane, (Brad Pitt) and his new assistant, a fictional character named Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill). It is presented that Peter's chief contribution is letting Beane know that on-base average is the best way to judge the value of players.

One night the club is going for the American League record of 20 straight wins, Beane is out driving to Visalia to see their minor league club. I guess we aren't supposed to know it is a 4-hour drive, because the A's are playing a night game when Billy decides to turn back to see the A's game instead. I should imagine it unlikely the Visalia club to have a game scheduled for midnight, so why was he driving there at that time of night to see the minor leaguers?

My chief criticism of the film is they make Beane out to be rather hostile, almost rude, to virtually everyone around him. I hope the real Billy Beane doesn't behave like the movie Beane. There is one scene of Beane and his ex-wife and her new husband. For no apparent reason, Beane treats the new husband rather shabbily. I wonder why they included this scene since there was no follow-up to it, no other scene dealing with any aspect of his broken marriage. Nor was there any hint that in real life, Beane had a new wife himself. They throw in 2 or 3 scenes of him being nice to his teenage daughter. Since the film was almost totally about his work life, they would have been wise to leave out the small bits with the daughter altogether.

Just like Billy and Peter, none of the players have any character development. Unlike the stars, the players are quite minor characters.

As a baseball fan, I thought it laughable that Billy flies from California to Cleveland just to talk to the Cleveland GM about making a trade for a little-used relief pitcher. That was to set up Beane noticing Peter, leading to him being hired by Beane.

Another laugh came when the two were together in Beane's office and Peter tells Beane that the left-handed reliever he wants to get from Cleveland, could only be wanted by 1 other club—San Francisco. Beane immediately phones the Giants and engineers a quick trade to get them another lefty reliever, so Cleveland will have to trade the guy to Billy. I dare say that a good left-handed reliever would in any season be desired by more than one or two clubs.

The film tries so hard to make it seem like this new strategy of Beane's—look for high on-base average players, disdain bunting and stealing—he tells them at one point that they should never bunt, leads to Oakland winning the division in 2002. Facts are they bunted for sacrifices 25 times in 2001, 20 times in 2002. The did cut down their stolen bases from 68 to 46, but considering the center fielder they lost, Johnny Damon had stolen 27 himself in 2001, and he was replaced someone who stole only 4, the lower stolen base figure must surely be attributed to that more than anything to do with strategy. It was interesting to hear Peter telling Billy early on that he didn't want Johnny Damon, that it was good for Oakland he was gone. Many people in the game consider Damon's play huge in helping the Red Sox win the World Series two years later, and later helping the Yankees to their only post-2000 World Series title to date. The A's have one post-season series win since 1993, and haven't won 100+ in any season since 2002.

I know the A's really relied on more than OBA, but that one stat cited in the film as being key makes it worth noting that the club On-Base Average in 2001 was .345, and in 2002 it dropped to .339. Their runs scored dropped from 884 to 800. I found it troubling that the real hitting stars of the A's, Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez, each of whom drove in over 100 runs are not featured at all.

More significantly, the key role of the pitching staff was totally ignored. The only scene featuring a pitcher, was Chad Bradford, who like a grateful kid approached Beane at the start of the 2002 season and thanked him for being the first one to give him a chance. This was rather weird in two ways. First, Bradford not only had pitched in 44 games over three seasons with the White Sox, but had worked 35 games in 2001 for Oakland. It's true he worked more in 2002, but he hardly would have known about getting a bigger chance before the season started. The other thing that was weird was the way Beane reacted. He couldn't wait to walk on past Bradford, almost like the "Go away boy, you bother me," notion of W.C. Fields.

Even though I knew the A's haven't reached a World Series since 1990, how they've stayed competitive, which they indeed have, seemed like a good idea for a movie. But Beane seemed like such a jerk who doesn't know how to talk to people nicely. Peter had almost no character other than a guy who quickly comes up with numbers. And no other person's character was explored in any way. So we got not character development AND almost no baseball action other than what took the place of the old newspaper headlines in movies from decades ago. All we're left with is some people talking about the fortunes of a baseball team during one season, plus a few random highlights.

There was nothing engaging about this movie. The characters were bland. The cinematography was nothing to marvel over. I understand that real life isn't always as engaging as we'd like it to be, but it worked for the Blind Side. I fail to understand why these directors couldn't make it work.

For some reason, the actors seem to have been directed to be silent for 3 seconds after anyone talks. Why? There was so much awkward silence in this movie! It left the audience giggling nervously. It added nothing to the plot or character development. If the silences were taken out, I guarantee it would be an hour shorter (and a lot less painful to watch). The film also seemed to lack a sufficient musical score. Scenes that would usually have been made more exciting by background music were played out in complete silence. It's very difficult to be excited about a plot development when the makers of the movie don't seem to be either.

The characters spoke in monotone. None of them struck me as likable, perhaps bar Billy Beane's daughter. Billy frequently becomes unjustifiably angry, throwing sports equipment at walls for dramatic effect. It all seems very fake and scripted. There's so little dialogue in this movie, I barely feel like I know any of the characters. If we're meant to rely on Billy Beane's facial expressions to get a sense of what he's feeling, then Brad Pitt doesn't do a good enough job.

Overall, it was a snooze fest. I kept looking at my watch, hoping it would soon be over. Don't see this movie. Wait for it to be shown on TV. You can watch it while reading a book, or doing the laundry. Trust me, you'll still get the general gist of it.

I liked the idea of the film, I like Brad Pitt as an actor, and I love IT and statistics, and I love sport, so this film had all the ingredients for me right? Wrong... This was a much-laboured film, that could and should have progressed at 150% the speed at least. There were far too many self-indulgent shots of Brad Pitt from afar trying to evoke thought and understanding, it just didn't work, at least not for me. For the last hour, I wanted to know the outcome, but I also wanted to put the film on 2X speed, because there was simply no tempo. Even the excellent Seymour-Hoffman was unable to shine with a small part in this forgettable film. Without Pitt, I would have given this film a 2/10..

After reading all the positive reviews I was looking forward to watching this movie. However, this movie was a disappointment. The biggest problem with the movie is that the characters are not properly developed and as a result the audience has no emotional attachment. Good sports movies create a strong connection with their audience, but this movie fails to do that. Brad Pitt wasn't that great in the movie. Jonah Hill did a good job. However, when it boils down to it this is just another typical sports movie. Nothing special or amazing. You don't get that feel good from other movies such as The Blind Side or We Are Marshall.

The book was fascinating. The script for the movie, at least Brad Pitt's part, is terrible. His character is pretty unbelievable. He disagrees with his scouts but usually gives no explanation as to why. The writers were just concerned about setting up the "dramatic conflict" and not about writing realistic interactions. As a result the movie fails to capture, in any but the most superficial way, the changing vision of how players were valued. It was a seismic shift in "America's pastime." Read the book.

I watched this because I've been intending to watch it for a long time, mainly because I love Sorkin's writing. I'm afraid I didn't really enjoy it: I couldn't really bring myself to care that much how a sports team fared, which I suppose removed all the jeopardy. I lost interest about half way though.

If you want a sports true story like "The Fighter" or a sports themed movie like "Win Win or "Million Dollar Baby" that is not what this movie is. This movie seemed like a documentary about statistics. I thought Brad Pitt did a great job. But the telling of the story seemed so flat. It had a very depressing feel, from the scenery to the interaction between characters. I love true stories and biographies though this may have been very accurate, I just felt very down throughout the movie; but I was not moved. The loyalty was there in the story but I did not experience it.

The actress that plays the daughter also was very good.

Never a fan of Brad Pitt as I find him so dull as an actor as well as a person. This was no different. Watched it because I love sports movies. Triumph over adversity. This was way to long. I didn't like any of the characters apart from possibly Chris Pratt's character. Would have given it a 2 but hubby thought it was watchable if nothing else. Don't bother

Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is a former baseball player who is now the general manager for the Oakland Athletics. When he is faced with the prospect of losing 3 of his key players, he approaches the 'boss' to try and get more money from him in order to replace these key players. When the 'boss' informs Beane that no more money is available Beane must try to build the best team that he has with the money that he's got; fortunately he is able to recruit stat-man Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who teaches Beane to look at baseball scouting from a completely different angle...

What I know about baseball could be written on the back of a postage stamp and therefore I decided to watch Moneyball hoping that the film would educate me somewhat whilst also providing me with an uplifting story. Whilst it does a little of both, I didn't find Moneyball to be an entirely satisfying product...

One thing I did notice about this film is how cold and clinical it feels; for the most part it's quite dour and depressing and at times it plays out more like a cold documentary than an uplifting piece of cinema. This is further extended to the baseball players within the film; there's no backstory to any of them and no real development to them as people which makes it impossible to root or care for any of them - this is made worse by the rather unceremonious way that they are traded to other teams (again made worse by how accepting some of them are of their dismissals which doesn't sit well with the flow of the film given that Beane had to give Brand a pep talk on how to deal with players reaction to being dismissed). Perhaps Director Bennett Miller wanted to keep the film low-key to avoid it being too melodramatic, but there has to be at least a degree of melodrama otherwise the film can come across as being rather flat and unengaging which is what happens in Moneyball. These things do give the film a rather heavy going feel about it which makes it a bit of a mare to sit through.

I confess to knowing nothing about Baseball so the various stats talks and tactical discussion went over my head (this may cause a problem to non-Baseball fans who choose to watch this film as it does take up a good chunk of the running time and this aspect of the film may be boring to some people - it certainly was for me). I think what makes things worse is that I didn't feel that the film did much to uplift me; I never felt a sense of euphoria at any point and wasn't cheering the Oakland Athletics on in the way the filmmakers wanted me to - although I'm prepared to acknowledge that what they achieved with the money/resources they had was quite a feat. As mentioned, it is a combination of the flat way the film is presented, the weak characterisation, and it's general failure to truly uplift me that were the biggest factors working against the film (the film even finishes on a slightly negative note when providing its summary at the end).

If there are any positives to this film then they lay with the acting; Brad Pitt does really well and is perhaps the only person it is possible to be behind throughout the film; his Billy Beane has the charisma and desire, but his flaws are shown as well which did give me some investment in the film. Jonah Hill is surprisingly low-key, but does well with what he has to work with - my one criticism is that he doesn't develop much of a working chemistry with Pitt which only adds to the multitude of problems I had with this film.

Those with an interest in Baseball may get something out of this, but it did little for me I'm afraid.