Review of Moneyball (2011) by Adam R — 27 Dec 2017

I'm not a fan of Baseball. Actually, I don't even know anything about this game. I'm also not a big fan of Sports movies in general. Also, this movie has a generic story that could have easily made Moneyball already dated. That's why I putted this movie off for a very long time, and I really regret doing that.

Director Bennett Miller, along with screenwriters, Steven Zaillian, and Aaron Sorkin took a story that sounds uninteresting and turned it into an enjoyable movie that is funny, intense, and very touching in equal measure. I didn't know that Aaron Sorkin co-wrote the script but I felt his touches while watching the movie till I became completely sure that he co-wrote its script even before I check that out.

The dialogue is so smart and sharp, and Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill were both great, especially Brad Pitt, and they had an incredible chemistry that made the dialogue even more captivating.

Let's face it, no director-screenwriter collaboration can beat Fincher-Sorkin's one. But that , by no means, means that Bennett Miller didn't do a great job directing this movie. Besides the fact that he made a very good-looking movie, he captured some truly magical cinematic moments that can stick in my head for a very long time. A very long sequence near the end, in particular, that is about ten minutes is easily one of the most riveting and gripping sequences I've ever watched. I was literally on the edge of my seat sweating, and putting my hands on head. It was really stressful and exhausting to watch. Also, the moments Billy Beane, Pitt's character, has with his daughter are just delightful to watch.

Nevertheless, Moneyball's problem, IMO, is that it's a bit boring! Its runtime is 133 min, and the movie definitely could have been way shorter. The problem is that there is too much talk that I really wasn't interested in, and most importantly, didn't need to. The movie lost me sometimes at the middle and the very end.

Billy Beane is a well-written and grounded character that brought to life by Brad Pitt's Oscar-nominated performance. It had a lot of development, and it was a very interesting character. That being said, I felt that his backstory isn't complete. I think it was interesting at the beginning, but then the movie just ignored his past. As a result, I felt like there was something is missing in this character. The movie actually did keep advancing his backstory forward in a way that connect very well with the ongoing events of the movie, but that, unfortunately, didn't happen after the first act anymore.

Overall, I loved Moneyball so much, and enjoyed watching it quiet a bit, and I didn't even think that I was going to like it.

(8/10).