Moneyball Review

A film about spreadsheets whose biggest emotional beat is a phone call has no business working this well, and it does because Bennett Miller films front-office arguments like heists. The Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian screenplay keeps the mechanics legible without condescending, and the first-act scouting room, older men trading opinions about a prospect's girlfriend as though that were data, makes the case before Billy Beane has to. Brad Pitt plays Beane as a man managing his own failed playing career in public, restless, unable to sit and watch a game he is responsible for, and keeping him in constant motion gives a static story a body.

Jonah Hill underplays completely and the pairing works. Wally Pfister shoots empty stadiums and fluorescent corridors with a chilly formality that resists the usual warmth of the sports picture. The film soft-pedals how extraordinary Oakland's pitching rotation was that season, which is a real thumb on the scale. But the twenty-game streak is staged with genuine tension, and the ending refuses the trophy on principle, which is rarer and better.