Movie Review - "Moneyball" (2011) *****

     It doesn't happen very often, but it feels so nice to put that fifth complete star at the end of my ratings. The five-star movie, so few movies reach that level of perfection in my opinion. Last year I ranked my favorite 100 films of all-time. The majority are 4 1/2 stars but there was that select few that was able to secure that fifth star and become ultimate classics, in my humble opinion. I would like to introduce Moneyball to that elite group. A group that has seen other sports movies make it including Field of Dreams, Rocky and Hoosiers. Going in to the Best Picture Showcase, Moneyball was the one movie that I had already seen. I loved it then...it was even better the second time around.

     Moneyball is based on a book of the same name written by Michael Lewis, and chronicles the true story of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, the 2002 team in particular, that succeeded despite having the lowest payroll in the major leagues. Brad Pitt gives his finest performance as A's General Manager Billy Beane, who is tired of the conventional, old-school way of thinking among baseball purists. He knows that to succeed with his payroll constraints against the league powerhouses, he needs to look at an alternate way of doing things. The status quo is not going to be enough. By accident one day, he meets a young Yale grad named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who is working as an intern for the Cleveland Indians. Brand's advice causes the Indians to pass on a potential trade with the A's, and Beane wants to know what Brand saw that would cause him to turn the trade down when everything pointed to it being a good deal. Brand explains to Beane that he feels baseball scouts have been getting it wrong for years, and a simple mathematical way of looking at a team, based on the statistical work of Bill James, will allow a small-market team to compete with the big boys. Beane immediately likes what he hears and he hires Brand to be his assistant GM with the A's, despite the protests of long-time scouts and A's manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Together, Beane and Brand (the fictional name of the real Paul DePodesta) rewrite the baseball books and show that it is possible to take on the system.

     So, there is an obvious question here; Do you have to enjoy baseball to appreciate this movie? It's a tough question. I think it certainly doesn't hurt to have a general knowledge of the game. Baseball fans will eat it up, and I am included in that group. But I can see people who are not fans of the game still enjoying this movie. The acting throughout is superb, highlighted by Brad Pitt who would be my choice for Best Actor, out of all the movies I have seen from 2011 so far. His performance as Billy Beane is flawless and he brings enough credibility to the movie, even for the non-baseball fans. Jonah Hill has also received a well-earned Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as the brains behind the operation. Hill is known for his raunchy, teenage comedy roles but here he shows that he does indeed have a dramatic side to him and I would like to see him utilize that more often. The screenplay credits go to Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, two of the finest writers you will find. Sorkin won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar last year for his job with The Social Network, another five-star movie high on my list, and he could easily win for the second year in a row with Moneyball. Zaillian has his own Screenplay Oscar for his script from the Steven Spielberg classic, Schindler's List. These are two of the finest at their craft and they have teamed up for a masterpiece. Director Bennett Miller has not directed many films, but he has a good pedigree going considering he was nominated for Best Director in 2005 for his work on Capote. Moneyball was even better the second time I saw it and it is now a movie I own on blu-ray disc and can enjoy whenever I want to. The movie is a homerun and I highly encourage you to give it a shot... even if you are not a baseball fan (which you should be by the way!!).