***½
MONEYBALL
Directed by: Bennett Miller
Written by: Stan Chervin, Steve Zaillian, and Aaron Sorkin, based on “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game’’ by Michael Lewis
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kerris Dorsey
At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs
Running time: 133 minutes
Rated: PG-13 (strong language)
In the annals of baseball movies, “Moneyball’’ is a weird one - a Zen comedy set in the front office. Even the story line sounds unsexy: In 2002, amid much opposition, Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane revives his sorry little ball club by using statistical analysis to hire undervalued players - freaks and losers who nevertheless manage to get on base. Slugging percentages and mid-season trades are the stuff of this movie’s drama. Where’s the 3-2 pitch in the ninth, bases loaded, and the kids in the bleachers? Where are the peanuts and Cracker Jack?
Not necessary, it turns out. Based on journalist Michael Lewis’s 2003 book about the team, “Moneyball’’ is a hilarious and provocative change-up, entertaining without feeling the need to swing for the fences. It’s all talk but the best kind of baseball talk, funny and wise and alive to the pleasures of saying as much as possible in the fewest words. Like the fresh thinking it celebrates, “Moneyball’’ finds value in the quieter moments and the workaday players. It’s an infield single but the one that wins the game.
The movie also has what may be Brad Pitt’s sneakiest acting to date. You’re forgiven if you want to say his only acting; while the Dudacious One has always come alive in supporting roles (“Twelve Monkeys,’’ “Burn After Reading,’’ arguably “Fight Club’’), in leads he has tended to coast on his slightly vacant geniality. Some of us have always felt Pitt was a stand-in for a Player To Be Named Later.
Yet the star seems energized by playing Beane, a prodigious high school baseball talent who skipped college only to see a major league career refuse to materialize. He’s one of the thousands who never made it in “the show,’’ and the experience has left him a little bitter but mostly realistic. He’s running a team, the A’s, with a $41 million payroll that’s dwarfed by the $125 million the Yankees get to play with. Early in the movie, the big boys finish off Beane’s 2001 season by cherry-picking Johnny Damon for Boston and Jason Giambi for the Yankees. The Oakland scouts - old men with experience and hearing aids - look over the draft picks and act on their instincts. Does a player have an ugly girlfriend? Forget about him; he has no confidence.