MONEYBALL (Bennett Miller, Columbia, 2011)

One of the most controversial issues facing the game of baseball right now is the use of instant replay. It is being used on a small scale basis but there are those that argue its use should be more widespread. MONEYBALL (Bennett Miller, Columbia, 2011) is a baseball film that doesn't stand up using instant replay (re-watching the film). The first time I saw it I was really impressed and I owe much of that to my unbridled love of baseball. My second viewing allowed me to focus more objectively on the film and it's various strengths and weaknesses. The performances by Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Phillip Seymour Hoffman were all good and the cinematography was outstanding. In the end though this film was weakened by a complete destruction of the narrative and being such a huge baseball fan this is the most important part of the film to me.

Being the most important part, I had to look at the narrative distantly and my second viewing gave me pause. The adaptation from the book is awful. The films narrative is in no way related to what the book focused on. Granted, two things must be accounted for. First, a book about a drafting strategy is not a sexy Hollywood picture. Second, the film is going to need to focus on its protagonist, Billy Beane (Pitt). That said they took complete narrative license and focused on events related to the A's but events that were not a part of the book. They crafted a protagonist-antagonist relationship specifically for the film, painting Art Howe (Hoffman) as a buffoon and villain. The film focused a good portion on the A's winning 20 straight games which had nothing to do with the book at all. The film took great liberties in simply forgetting that the A's had built a tremendous team prior to adopting Moneyball strategies. Seriously, they mentioned Eric Chavez ONCE, never Miguel Tejada and not one mention of Hudson, Mulder, Zito et al. This group of core players was the A's at the turn of the century along with Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon. And then the films final little stab at make believe, claiming the Red Sox won their first title in 86 years after they adopted Moneyball strategy. This complete and total destruction of events as they happened, hyperstylization of narrative to fit Hollywood standards and disregard for the books narrative serve to weaken this film immeasurably to my eyes and surely to those of other baseball fans.

For those people that watch the film and are not baseball fans they are treated to some good acting performances by the stars of the film. Both Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman are good, though Hoffman isn't given much to work with in the role. And I'm impressed with Hill but not convinced he deserved a Oscar nomination for the role, particularly over Albert Brooks in DRIVE (Refn, 2011). The star of the film is Brad Pitt and he owns the film like only Mr. Pitt can. Long my favorite actor, it's good to see him bouncing back and attacking roles again. He seemingly disappeared for a long time and watching him in MONEYBALL, showing charm, guile and a little bit of craziness brings back memories of his great roles of the past.

The film does carry one outstanding feature that I particularly loved and that is its cinematography. This film had the best cinematography for a baseball film I have ever seen, including THE NATURAL (Levinson, 1984). The hardest thing to watch in any baseball film is non players acting as baseball players (Tim Robbins as Nuke Lalouche anyone?). This film has legitimate players performing in legitimate baseball scenes. They also did a nice job of intercutting actual footage into scenes (a deserved Oscar nod there).

All in all, technically this was a very well done baseball film. Narratively it is not, in fact it is an egregious slight to Michael Lewis in my opinion. As a film about adapting to change and surviving in an ever changing world, then I give it a thumbs up. Just give it another name, and claim it is loosely based on the book. Maybe we can use instant replay on that aspect, go back in time and have the film executives make the right call.