Moneyball
Brad Pitt takes on the role of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane in Bennett Miller's adaptation of Michael Lewis's best-selling book.
Directed by Bennett Miller
(PG-13)
****
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“Moneyball infuses improbable emotion” into what is basically a story about number-crunching, said Ann Hornaday in The Washington Post. The result is a “movie of such loping, unforced ease and solid entertainment that it’s easy to take its gifts for granted.” Based on a nonfiction best seller by Michael Lewis, the film stars Brad Pitt as Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, who in 2002 eschewed traditional scouting and embraced such underappreciated statistics as on-base percentage to cobble together a winning team from an array of castoffs. Beane’s little-team-that-could story might’ve been “rendered dull or sappy,” said Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. But director Bennett Miller (Capote) proves again to be a rare talent, “adept at making interpersonal dynamics and matters of workaday procedure come alive.” Pitt, meanwhile, “channels Robert Redford,” as he so often does, said David Edelstein in New York. This time, the part fits the tools he brings to the task—“the witty understatement, the mastery of the pause-and-stare to suggest the wheels turning in his head.” He’s “dazzlingly good.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Today's political cartoons - December 22, 2024
Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - the long and short of it, trigger finger, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 hilariously spirited cartoons about the spirit of Christmas
Cartoons Artists take on excuses, pardons, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Inside the house of Assad
The Explainer Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, ruled Syria for more than half a century but how did one family achieve and maintain power?
By The Week UK Published