Moneyball, the movie, is an absolute mess of a film, the type of muddled end product you’d expect from a project that took several years and went through multiple writers and directors. Even good performances by a cast of big names and some clever makeup work couldn’t save this movie, and if I hadn’t been planning to review it, I would have walked out.
The movie failed first and foremost for me as a movie, not just as a baseball movie. (I’ll get to the baseball parts later.) The general plot here is that the A’s lose their 2001 ALDS to the Yankees and are about to lose three major players to free agency, so Billy Beane goes hunting for a new way of doing business. He runs into a stats geek working in Cleveland’s front office named Peter Brand, hires him, and Brand brings the sabermetric philosophy that we now associate with the early 2000s Oakland teams. This causes friction with Oakland’s scouts, who are all idiots, and Art Howe, who was a stubborn idiot (this is the movie, not my opinion), and Billy might even lose his job until the A’s get hot and win 20 games in a row. Meanwhile, we are to believe that this is all so Billy can purge the personal demons created by the failure of his playing career.
Billy is the only fully realized character in the entire movie, and even at that his disparate pieces don’t tie all that well together. Peter Brand, a.k.a. Paul Antipodesta, is a mousy number cruncher who looks like the lay viewer would expect a stat geek to look – unathletic, dressed in dull collared shirts and ties, intimidated by the players, with no complexity to the character. Howe is nothing but a holier than thou obstacle for Beane whose entire motivation for his stubbornness is his desire for a contract extension – a hopelessly tired plot device that makes for a one-dimensional character. Even Casey, Billy’s daughter, who is shoehorned into this weird plot strand about him possibly losing his job, is nothing more than the plot strand requires her to be.
The lack of multi-dimensional characters is exacerbated by the languid, aimless plot and stop-and-start pacing. The film mopes through Opening Day and the beginning of the A’s season, races through their midyear turnaround, then jumps through most of the winning streak until the twentieth victory, at which point we’re handed slow motion views of the A’s blowing an 11-0 lead … and of Art Howe thinking, with no sound at all. Even the paces of conversations are strange and often forced; one of the “action” scenes, if I could call it that, involves watching Billy juggle three GMs (Shapiro, Phillips, and Sabean) to try to acquire Ricardo Rincon. All three GMs come off as stooges, but more importantly, it’s boring as hell to watch anyone, even Brad Pitt, talk on the phone.
Pitt is very good with the stilted material he’s given and clearly made an effort to look and act the part, from his hair to his tone of voice to his facial expressions. He’s also frequently eating or drinking, which he seems to do in every movie in which he appears. Jonah Hill, as Peter Brand, is very good when he can use his character’s dry, monotonous delivery for comedic effect, drawing laughs from lines that aren’t inherently funny because his timing is so good. Chris Pratt has several funny moments as Scott Hatteberg, very recognizable if youve seen his work as Andy on Parks and Recreation, although he really only has two scenes of any significance in this movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman was wasted as Howe, unfortunately, playing a one-note character who would like you to know he doesn’t care what you have to say about baseball. Robin Wright Penn is also wasted as Beane’s ex-wife who is apparently married to a closeted gay man.
I could have tolerated a lot of flaws if Moneyball had just given me a good baseball movie, with some real tension to it, or perhaps a strong character study of Billy Beane. But the film provides neither, and I spent most of the movie wondering what was really on the line here. The A’s don’t win a playoff series in 2002, so the script can’t set that up as a goal or use the playoffs as a climax. Beane took a $39 million team to the playoffs the year before; he wasn’t going to be fired in May for taking a few risks that his owner more or less told him to take (and if he had been fired, he would have been hired by someone else in a heartbeat, despite the character’s later claim to the contrary). His daughter is worried about him because she doesn’t see the big picture, but neither she nor her father is in any real jeopardy at any point in the film. We’re not playing for anything here.
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Then there’s the baseball stuff, which is not good. For starters, the lampooning of scouts, which draws from the book, isn’t any more welcome on screen (where some of the scouts are played by actual scouts) than it was on the page; they are set up as dim-witted bowling pins for Beane and Brand to knock down with their spreadsheets. It’s cheap writing, and unfair to the real people being depicted. Current Oakland scouting director Eric Kubota also gets murdered in a drive-by line that depicts him as a clueless intern given the head scouting role after Beane fires Grady Fuson in April after a clubhouse argument (that never really happened). I’ll confess to laughing at the scout referring to “this Bill James bullshit,” although the A’s bought into that bullshit years before the film claims they did – and, in fact, hired Paul Depodesta three years before the movie-A’s hired Brand. (In the film, Fuson refers to Brand as “Google boy,” a term applied to Depodesta by Luddite beat writers in LA three years later.)
The film also relies on some pretty gross misrepresentations or oversimplifications of the business. The idea of a GM getting on a plane and flying two thirds of the way across the country to meet another GM to discuss a trade for a left-handed reliever is so absurd that it should set off alarm bells in even the casual fan. Do you really think that GMs only talk trades in person? That they fly to meet each other for tete-a-tetes before consummating any deal? Similarly, teams don’t sign injured players to guaranteed contracts by flying out to their houses (on Christmas Eve, apparently) without having them go through physicals.
I wasn’t as concerned with the script having Beane trade Carlos Pena to Detroit for a reliever and some money (as opposed to the actual three-team, seven-player deal including Jeff Weaver and Jeremy Bonderman) as I was with seeing Pena, an intelligent, gregarious person, depicted as a sullen Latino player. I also find it hard to believe Beane would ever say he didn’t care about pitchers’ platoon splits. And the film’s emphasis on Beane not making it as a player seems to point to questions about his makeup, especially his confidence, which hardly ties into a film about how makeup is overrated.
If you do end up seeing the film, and I imagine most of you will, there is one scene towards the end that stood out for me as incredibly spot on, so much so that it didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the film. Beane is sitting in what was then called the .406 club at Fenway Park with John Henry, who is about to offer him a record-breaking deal to become the Red Sox’ new GM. Henry expounds on how Beane’s method of doing things is going to sweep through the industry, and how critics within the game weren’t just trying to protect the game, but were expressing their own fears about their livelihoods. That speech applies just as well to any industry undergoing the kind of creative destruction ushered in by Bill James, Sandy Alderson and Billy Beane. Remember that when you see the next written attack on “stat geeks” who are ruining the game along with a defense of RBIs or pitcher wins.
If you haven’t already done so, go read the book
Wow what a great review. As you say I will probably still see it anyway but I know what I’m in for now…sheesh…
I think as a baseball fan who understand all the concepts, it may be hard to enjoy, simply because of how the facts are skewed.
In terms of the movie, it’s drawing exceptional reviews so far (at least from the 8 on Rotten Tomatoes), so I’m not sure.
I guess you have to take it for what it’s worth, and it seems like it should be entertaining to me.
Hollywood films tend to be especially hard to watch when the subject is your area of expertise. My father (who works for an oil company) nearly had an aneurysm while watching Armageddon and its hilariously inaccurate depiction of drilling.
You forgot to close your parenthesis after “Bonderman.” 🙂
Great review. I think I’ll skip Moneyball.
I was thinking about seeing how they transferred the book to the screen. Probably gonna save my money now. Thanks Klaw for the review.
Well, this is disappointing. Drew McWeeny gave it such a positive review that I’m genuinely surprised to hear you disliked it so much. I’m sure I’ll watch it, but probably not until it comes out on DVD.
As for the ‘Google Boy’ nickname, that sounds like something TJ Simers would say (he revels in referring to Frank McCourt as the ‘Parking Lot Attendant’), and if it originated with him I wouldn’t take it too seriously. He seems to live only to generate angry, clueless letters that he can turn around and mock in his column
I read the book from the perspective of an Englishman on holiday in the US with little or no real concrete knowledge about baseball and found it a good story. At least the review will allow me to avoid listening to Eric Karabell whining and squealing about it on a future Baseball Today podcast – you’ve saved me that annoyance.
Go see Tinker Tailor instead. Proper movie.
It might be bias, but as an Angels fan who remembers 2002 (and the rest of the A’s so-called “reign”), this movie seems utterly pointless to me. Too small in scope to really capture how the A’s changed how some things were done, and how those elements today make Nick Swisher a reasonable player when he would’ve been a fourth outfielder at best twenty years ago.
Thanks for the review. You saved me time and money both.
Wasn’t Beane in Cleveland at the time of the Rincon trade since the A’s were playing the Indians?
Moneyball – what lead to the A’s to passing on Todd Helton for Ariel Prieto!!!!!
Keith,
Did you see this at TIFF? If so, forget about Brad Pitt; I should’ve tried to get your autograph!
I guess my question is whether the one scene is worth the price of the ticket. Or two tickets and a large drink and parking. To see a movie that will probably annoy the baseball fan and bore the non-fan. I’m answering my own question here, aren’t I?
Does Brad Pitt offer to trade the Red Sox a fookin’ caravan in exchange for Kevin Youkilis?
I’m probably going to see this at some point anyway, but thank you for properly lowering my expectations.
Jordan: different scene.
Chris: ignoring the irrelevance of other critics’ opinions to my own, did you look at who those eight “critics” are? I see two credible sources there, one of whom didn’t like it.
There was no way this movie was getting a positive review.
Keith, I have read the book and found it to be an extremely good read. It is amusing though when you analyze the “Moneyball” draft against history . Billy was thrilled that the Brewers wasted a first round pick on some fat HS first baseman named Prince Fielder. They were similarly thrilled when the Mets took HS flamethrower Scott Kazmir. These two terrible picks allowed the A’s to get Joe Blanton and Nick Swisher. Let’s face it, Fielder has future hall of famer written all over him. Had it not been for injuries Kazmir was on the fast track for stardom. I do appreciate the concepts of “Moneyball”. I think Billy Beane is an extremely gifted GM and also find him to be forward thinking and outside the box. I haven’t seen the film yet but I am envisioning a “Secretariat” type feel good movie rather than a true depiction of historical events. I am looking forward to seeing it with some trepidation and expectation of “Hollywooding up” the story line for dramatic effect.
Steve: had the movie been better, I would have given it a positive review.
Really enjoyed reading the review Keith, though the truth is that you’re almost certainly too close to the material to bring any real perspective. My first quibble is that it is a movie and not a documentary (even if “based on a true story”), so the departures from reality have to be expected. They also will necessarily dumb down a lot of the inside-baseball details to broaden their audience (and enrage some baseball fans). They’ll also make villains who are not fair representations of the people they represent (whether it is Howe, the scouts, or Carlos Pena). Finally, your complaint about watching Brad Pitt talking on the phone as being boring is then contradicted by your complaint about having a GM fly across the country to complete a trade. As a viewer you want the two actors to be in the same room, not talking to each other over the phone.
Haven’t seen the movie, and it may be terrible because of the army of writers that stuck the fingers in it, but complaining about places where it takes dramatic license seems silly.
Hi Keith, is there any good reading you’d recommend specifically related to makeup being over-rated?
(Or is that covered in Moneyball itself?)
Thanks.
though the truth is that you’re almost certainly too close to the material to bring any real perspective
Wrong. And I can’t say I took anything you said after your “truth” seriously once you hand-waved away my perspective with an inane accusation of bias.
Thanks for the review, Keith. I’m disappointed, but can’t say I’m surprised. From the first preview, it seems like this wasn’t going to be a movie for baseball fans who have a rudimentary understanding of the nuances of the sport and the business.
Thank you for the insightful review. I probably should see Moneyball, but I’ll likely be just as frustrated with a the baseball stuff, if not the movie overall.
God, I remember having to explain to a room of law professors a few years after it came out just how misguided was Michael Lewis’ depiction of scouting and baseball metrics… it’s amazing how much that book became a rallying zeitgeist of a book within the very well educated with a passion for baseball (but lacking a bit of perspective on baseball analysis). What’s funny is that I remember reading the book with such enthusiasm when it came out (I was 20 years old at the time), and being incredibly stoked. Then I did back research and matured as a sportswriter (for the Duke student paper), and quickly grew disenchanted.
Michael Lewis is a talented writer/researcher, but that fact that multiple books of his have massive, obvious embellishments scares me: wrapping up complex intellectual/practical questions & topics into short, neatly presented allegories of “new truth” is really dangerous.
Comparing Lewis to someone like Halberstam, who was so thorough and meticulous in both his research and presentation, and you see just how manipulative and simply-presented Lewis’ theses usually are.
Thanks for the revew K Law,
Nick
P.S> Have you read Halberstam’s The Reckoning? It’s an awfully good examination done on the car industry which was published in the mid-80s… He spent years with both Ford and Nissan, and his observations on the different car cultures and executive visions are extremely apt, particularly as the next 30 years has seen the inevitable scale-tipping that Hlberstam’s work foresaw.
P.P.S> Did you really walk out of Unforgiven? Really?
“it’s boring as hell to watch anyone, even Brad Pitt, talk on the phone.”
Generally true, but one exception I will point out is Robert Redford in All the Presidents Men – there is a five minute scene early on where he is talking on the phone in the newsroom, switching between lines, and the camera justs sits and observes. Brillant writing and acting and a very engrossing scene.
Thanks for the review. I will go and watch anyhow as, I read the book years ago and am interested in the adaption. This is the era just before I got into Baseball and I still have the passion of a convert for anything baseball related.
[i]Wrong. And I can’t say I took anything you said after your “truth” seriously once you hand-waved away my perspective with an inane accusation of bias.[/i]
Actually I’d say the opening line (“[i]Moneyball[/i] is the mess you’d expect…”) is a pretty major indication of said bias.
You actually made me want to see the movie.
Sabermetrics guys seem to want to have it both ways: to be critical of traditional baseball measurement (by pointing out the weakness of RBIs, SVs, Ws). But they also want to play down the tension in front of fans/public. That’s why you don’t seem to like those parts of the movie. I think you should embrace it.
I’m more surprised by the positive reviews out there than your negative one, only because it doesn’t seem like a subject matter that would translate into a good movie. I mean, I love Bill James’ work, but I don’t think I’d want to watch an epic biopic on his life.
PeteF3: Interesting that you cut my quote off right before my explanation of the expectation – that it’s been through multiple writers and directors (and, I should have mentioned, studios). It’s a muddle. That has nothing to do with where I worked.
David: I’m not sure how you could even make that comment without seeing the movie, or ever think that I try to play down the tension between old and new schools of thought. I openly mock those who argue based on W, SV, RBI, etc. There’s no tension along those lines in the film, though. It’s a rout – they depict the scouts as morons, Howe as an impediment to progress, and Billy just runs roughshod all over them.
FWIW, I saw Moneyball at a screening on Monday and found the film absolutely enjoyable. I would be surprised if Pitt’s performance doesn’t earn him a Best Actor nomination.
Fair point in response. The way I read it was that you didn’t like the tension, not that it was depicted badly.
And I know you embrace it on your twitter/Baseball Today pcs–both of which I am an avid follower of…
Thanks
I didn’t feel like there was enough tension (from any source) to sustain the narrative. Sorry if that didn’t come across in the post.
Hi Keith, thanks for the great review. I’ve been searching your blog but don’t see any review of the book. Have you posted your thoughts on the book itself?
A little disappointed about this movie now. I wanted to see it and held out hope.
Keith, I love your stuff and appreciate the review. However, given other positive reviews and my suspicion that there is no way you could possibly be objective about reviewing this movie, I’m discounting your negative review quite a bit. It would be like me seeing a movie about accounting (God forbid). There’s no way I could watch it without being affected by any inaccuracies they present. That’s the vibe I got from this.
The movie lampoons a group of people you identify with and presents inaccurately a profession with which you are intimately familiar. I can see how that would leave a bad taste in your mouth even though the movie might be alright for someone who comes from a different perspective.
It appears to me that many of your criticisms of the movie are also criticisms of the book. The ideas of scouts/Art Howe being dumb and Beane’s GM philosophy being influenced by his baseball failures are pretty clear take-away messages from the book.
I understand your complaints about the dialogue and overall lack of entertainment value. I can only take your word on that until I see it for myself. But your complaints about the content of the movie seem to mirror complaints you would also have about the content of the book.
This review caused me to search your blog to see if you had reviewed the book. You have not, and without that review I feel like this movie review is incomplete. You make a lot of strong points that have lowered my expectations (the portrayal of Carlos Pena raises a red flag), but I still do not understand the complaints about the inferences made from the book.
This review is completely independent of the book, which is flawed but absolutely worth reading, enough so that I recommended at the end of the review that readers check it out. The movie itself is only loosely inspired by the book.
I didn’t review the book here because I read it before its publication, two or three years before I started the dish.
Daniel, it looks to me like you’re the one who’s not being objective. You wanted to hear something positive about the film, didn’t get that here, so your cognitive dissonance kicked in and you’re claiming bias where there is none. I laid out very specific reasons why the movie failed in my eyes, and I don’t see how you could cry “bias” after I went into such detail.
After reading your review, thinking that maybe the studio should have went with Soderbergh’s idea of having an animated character play the Bill James part
Keith, I was not looking for anything positive at all. I have no vested interest in how good the movie is. I think there were some merits to the things you said. I just think that too many of your criticisms are clouded by your perspective for them to hold much weight for me.
“Billy is the only fully realized character in the entire movie, and even at that his disparate pieces don’t tie all that well together.”
I mad e this comment in your Up in the Air review. The fact that a movie doesn’t fully develop multiple characters shouldn’t be a negative. Not every movie can, nor should, fully develop multiple characters simply due to the time constraints of movies. Multiple fully developed characters is a realistic for novels and I suspect you might be transplanting this expectation to movies when these mediums operate under constraints.
“But the film provides neither, and I spent most of the movie wondering what was really on the line here.”
I think what’s on the line is how the industry operates in terms of decision making.
“The film also relies on some pretty gross misrepresentations or oversimplifications of the business. The idea of a GM getting on a plane and flying two thirds of the way across the country to meet another GM to discuss a trade for a left-handed reliever is so absurd that it should set off alarm bells in even the casual fan. Do you really think that GMs only talk trades in person?”
Misrepresentations or oversimplifications were bound to happen. To expect total realism and fully nuanced scenes from a movie isn’t a necessary goal. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be valued. It just isn’t a necessary expectation in order to enjoy a movie. I enjoyed Frost/Nixon quite a bit which also indulged in misrepresentations or oversimplications. But the storytelling is compelling which I think is the prime objective of movies (but not with documentaries where facts should take a higher, if not highest, priority).
“That speech applies just as well to any industry undergoing the kind of creative destruction ushered in by Bill James, Sandy Alderson and Billy Beane. Remember that when you see the next written attack on “stat geeks” who are ruining the game along with a defense of RBIs or pitcher wins.”
This is exactly what is on the line then.
Snatch: terrible movie.
How many people enjoyed the book? I don’t know about everyone here, but I thought the book reeked of arrogance. The insults about “the fat scout in the room” and Art Howe’s facial expressions rubbed me the wrong way. I understand opening fans’ eyes to statistical analysis, but it could have been better written. I guess this is what I would expect this movie to be. I never thought it would translate well to the screen and still don’t. I plan on passing.
The fact that a movie doesn’t fully develop multiple characters shouldn’t be a negative.
Disagree. Strongly. There’s no right or wrong answer, but in my opinion, better movies tend to develop more characters. Peter Brand is second most important character in the film and is pretty much straight out of central casting for “socially awkward smart guy.”
You may like movies I find hopelessly superficial. That doesn’t make me “right” but it does mean we are unlikely to agree on many films.
This is exactly what is on the line then.
And it’s barely present in the film. Once near the start, once at the end. It’s not developed as a consistent theme.
@Beelachek: Snatch: terrible movie.
We … we can’t be friends any more.
“You may like movies I find hopelessly superficial. That doesn’t make me “right” but it does mean we are unlikely to agree on many films.”
Could very well be true. Off the top of head, I really liked the following recent films in which multiple characters are not developed: There Will Be Blood, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, 500 Days of Summer, Precious, United 93, Munich, most Pixar films, No Country for Old men, Frost/Nixon, and The Wrestler. Although, I guess you might see some of these films as character studies which would exempt them from the multiple character development preference.
And I think the criticism about you being too close to the game to judge the film is completely off base. If anything, it’s a strength, not a weakness.
Kinda skimmed the comments but…is Moneyball worth reading after all this time? I never got around to reading it all those years ago, and everytime it comes up on BBTF, I see people talk about stuff Lewis got wrong, and I wonder if it’s just too late to read it without smirking at Lewis’ gushing of prospects that ended up doing nothing.
Similarly, I haven’t picked up Bruce Feldman’s “Meat Market” for the same reason.
Finally, it sucks that Keith didn’t like this movie, but I’m pretty sure I’m still gonna see it. It’s a damn baseball movie, I have to go see it!
Here’s the way I read the “too close to the subject matter” point of view:
You know a great deal about the industry. Because of this, when a movie is made largely about the way the industry runs, and mistakes, often gross mistakes, are made, they will nag at you and significantly affect your enjoyment of the film (this does not necessarily mean you would have enjoyed the film if you weren’t coming from an expert perspective, nor that you were biased against the movie, just that it was likely to be more difficult for you to enjoy it).
Along the same lines, you are likely to catch (and be bugged by) narrative holes that people less familiar with the industry might miss. I remember in the first Harry Potter movie, a couple scenes were condensed together so that the trio were caught out after curfew when returning home from dinner at Hagrid’s – as someone who went to boarding school and is familiar with that culture, the situation was ridiculous to me, and it felt like a massive problem with the plot. I’m sure many others accepted the events without a problem, and enjoyed the movie much more because of that.
Some people here have said they will discount your review in their own decisions to see the movie because of your perspective; they seem confident in their ability to overlook the industry-related mistakes you pointed out and judge the movie’s success or failure, for them, based on other factors. Personally, I learned enough from your review that, knowing myself, I won’t be able to get beyond those (now evident) plot holes, mischaracterizations, etc., and potentially enjoy the other elements of the movie. I’m happy though – I know more now, and, as we all learned from G.I. Joe, knowing is half the battle.
You’re twitter post “The shocking (hint: #notshocked) thing about my Moneyball review is how much it’s being criticized by people who haven’t seen the movie”, I don’t think is entirely accurate. There have been some criticisms, but not as widespread as I expected after that comment.
Regardless, I’m still fairly excited to see the movie because a) I read the book a couple times and I would like to see how they transformed it onto film, and b) I love anything written by Aaron Sorkin (Social Network, Charlie Wilson’s War, Few Good Men, The West Wing, Sports Night). I dunno if the criticism of not developing multiple characters applies in this case because the book is heavily tilted towards Billy Beane’s perceptions. You and I might be opposite though because I become frustrated when films try to develop too many characters and not enough emphasis on the main ones. To each his own I guess.
I still don’t know how this movie is going to translate to the mainstream, as the book is strictly meant for a baseball audience. There’s no human interest story (like “The Blind Side”) that is going to captivate audiences in the book. The cinematography looked interesting in the trailer. I appreciate your review of the movie Keith, well written as usual. I hope I end up liking the movie more than you did.
That’s fair, Brandon. I couldn’t get more specific in 140 characters. But i have been hit with a lot of comments that I don’t have the integrity to separate my personal connection with subjects in the film from my evaluation of the film as a work of art. That’s frustrating, and in my view, unfair since so few of the commenters have seen the film. See it, then tell me where I went astray.