Moneyball

The muffled crack of the bat, presented in extreme slow motion (what else?), is met with the soaring score and a slow rise to the triumphant roar of the cheering, overjoyed spectators. Ah yes... it's time for another rehash of baseball movie clichés. In case you forgot what it was like to watch the same sequence shot and edited the same way as it was done countless times before, then prepare to savour every morsel of director Bennett Miller's ode to the cinematically popular game. Or at least enjoy the second half, because Moneyball actually begins with a lot of promise and an attitude that feels surprisingly fresh. If only the temptation of embracing the clichéd finale wasn't so difficult to resist!

The movie's early success stems from its story, based on real events that took place less than a decade ago. Facing a stripped roster due to lack of funds (and the astronomically disproportionate funds flowing through rival franchises like the New York Yankees), Oakland A's GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt, trying his hardest to play Brad Pitt) insists on adopting a new brand of team-building strategy that relies on cold, hard statistics instead of what a player is supposedly worth. Billy teams up with shy economics major Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), who is convinced that his plan to look at on-base percentages is the key to netting some cheap players and building a winning team.

Since this is a sports movie, it might as well be an underdog movie, too, so of course everyone else thinks Billy is crazy to go ahead with this new plan. But he does it anyway and it only takes a ton of games, a lot of waiting, and a pile of montages to make the plan actually work. But regardless of where the movie ends up, the behind-the-scenes peek at building a successful baseball club is engaging and interesting. Pitt brings his usual charm and Hill brings his usual awkwardness and they end up making a fun pair. The conversations with scouts and agents and other GMs are bolstered by the rapid-fire wit of a script that boasts Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin as co-writers.

Despite the loud voices of nearby naysayers, Billy and Peter stick to their game plan and insist on signing risky players at low prices. The numbers begin flying across the screen and a ragtag group of rejected ball players starts to form in the A's dressing room. Miller keeps the energy level peaking at this point and Moneyball finds some comfortable breathing space in the management-related areas that exist off the field. The dialogue provides some laughs and this somewhat reversed look at the game suggests the hopeful possibilities of a baseball movie that is won in the office instead of the diamond.

But in the midst of all this, cracks in the system slowly emerge. Flashbacks to Billy's days as a promising baseball prospect disrupt the narrative and create an unnecessary distraction in place of a lightly hinted backstory. Billy's failure as a player and how that now impacts him as a general manager is a far more potent piece of internal conflict in the present. The past just feels too obvious, like a cookie-cutter game of fill-in-the-blanks that exists only to make sure that all audience members, even the ones who are barely paying attention, don't miss a thing. I guess Miller figured that baseball isn't about subtlety, so why should the movie even attempt it?

A subplot involving Billy's adolescent daughter Casey (Kerris Dorsey) is a complete waste of time. Its only intention is to allow the movie to tug ever more blatantly at our heartstrings as Billy struggles to be a good dad (all it takes is a smile!) on his quest to becoming a better GM. The sentimentality factor reaches critical levels throughout this subplot and the overall narrative just becomes more padded and predictable. Moneyball is so insistent that its hero be given recognizable tokens of treacly human experience that Billy's journey begins to feel a little fabricated.

As the clichés launch their offensive takeover of the narrative, the sense of manufactured drama becomes impossible to ignore. All that "based on a true story" background stuff doesn't help when the sometimes stunning spontaneity of sports is replaced with a generic set of cinematic baseball experiences that might as well have been plucked from the bowels of a Cracker Jack box. It's a shame that this is where Moneyball ends up, since Miller does exhibit some imagination on occasion and he has succeeded in making half of an entertaining movie. He achieves some solid moments and the passion for the sport is sweet and tender, but the laughable on-field finale and exhausting wrap-up that follows just kills the momentum.

So the chance to direct his own version of baseball clichés ultimately gets the better of Miller. By giving into temptation and refusing to try something new or exciting or even slightly outside the norm, he provides no support for the moments that actually work well. There's a great scene where Billy and Peter engage multiple rival GMs in a series of phone calls that really shine a fascinating light on the fragile intricacies of wheeling and dealing in the world of cash-strapped baseball finance. It's a fun scene that represents a smart and effective look at the business of ball games. Moneyball flirts with such insight from time to time. It comes close to achieving its goal. It's almost there, at least in the first half. There's genuine potential here, but it comes up short. If only Miller wasn't seduced by the simple shot of a bat swinging in slow-motion.