Moneyball (Dir.: Bennett Miller; Cast: Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman et al.)
Moneyball is a bat-meets-number, sports-meets-analytics story with a tight plot that hooks the viewer and manages to keep him engaged till the end.
Brad Pitt stars as Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, trying to put together a winning team on a tight budget. The film chronicles how Beane is helped by an Economics graduate, who helps Beane assemble a strong team with his paltry budget with some serious number-crunching. Hence, Moneyball is a sports film with a twist, where off-field events get pride of place.
Short on human drama, perhaps deliberately, the film can fail to tug emotionally, but the taut plot pulls it through. A minor subplot, involving the story of Beane?s own life adds its bit to the scheme of things and helps one understand and appreciate the character much better.
