Moneyball

First,brilliant acting by Brad Pitt, good to see him in movies like this.

I had watched some baseball based movies which focuses mainly on particular player or a team or a manager but none focused on the complexity behind running the club.This movie is based on the book with the same name by Michael Lewis. This is the real story of Billy Beane who is the manager of Oakland Atheletics who inspite of his low budget made his team to reach miles in 2002 season.

Left with no other options, he hired Peter Brand,a Yale economic graduate to help him to buy and sell players for the coming season.Peter Brand uses his own non-traditional sabermetrics to help Beane to form a competitive team.Initially the team failed miserably but Beane and Brand convinces the club owner to have faith in their approach.As they  promised, the team started to win.In fact they won 20 consecutive matches,an American baseball league record.

Beane who is superstitious never goes to stadium and watch Oakland A's playing but after winning 20 consecutive matches ,he visits but the Oakland A's started losing their grip on the match , he goes back and luckily the won by a single run.

Even though Oakland A's lost their fist post season match,Beane was happy that their approach paid off. Eventually he was offered a substantial amount to manage Boston Red Sox, but he refused and still managing Oakland A's.Then there is his personal story of his daughter's relationship with him and his failed baseball life.

As i mentioned earlier, this role is one of the best of Brad Pitt(yet to watch Tree of life).He had nailed it.Wonderfully supported by Jonah Hill as Peter Brand.Jonah Hill received Oscar nomination for this role. Philip Hoffman as the coach too did his role to perfection.Music by Michael Danna and cinematography by Wally Pfister -two important contribution to this movie.The director Bennet Miller's narration of this biographical story was excellent.The screen play by Steven Zaillion and Aaron Sorkin was apt as they did not bring the complex statistics in the book ,well done.Definitely one of the best of 2011.

Click here to know about Billy Beane

Click here to know more about Sabermetrics