Movie Review: 'Money Ball'

Would you like a theory which tells you that scientific number crunching may lead you to successfully choose the professional players for any sport with highly likely chances of winning? Either you agree to this fully or partially, or you’re a Brad-struck fan then go for this movie which won’t disappoint you for sure. 
 

Brad Pitt as Billy Beane is a cool, moody coach cum key selector for the players for the Oklahoma Baseball club. The club is in a serious need of revamping for its consistent stereotyped failures or should I say, missed successes by thin margins. Billy comes across a rotund, smart-ass graduate guy named Peter Brand, working for some other club as Players’ Analyst. He gets impressed by him and then gets sold on his theory of buying runs while selecting players and eventually buys the Analyst himself to work for him. The key here is that the young guy has had made a mathematical matrix of numbers that help assessing the players’ consistency and judging players by their historical performances and this sounds not only pretty interesting and strangely undoubting as well. 

All the other members in the selection committee who’ve whitened their hair judging players over the decades for the Oklahoma team go against this insanely crazy Billy for his seemingly useless theory. On the other hand, Billy, a nerd when it comes to baseball, is a self-willed and who-gives-a-damn guy. He is so obsessed in his winning plans through this number-strategy that he hardly notices such opposition and whenever he does, he virtually thrashes the objectors with his cool grace. Unaffected by the grave opposition from all ranks of selection committee, Billy and Peter manage to sit together to reach their goal of buying the underdogs within the budget. They are busy analyzing the game to gauge the playing-patterns of the players and thereby deciding on the untapped potential to choose the underutilized and undervalued player at a cheaper rate. They not only successfully bring all of them on board despite the severe objections from others, but also are able to pull off the series of victory and break the record of all time.

I would like to make a special mention of Billy’s way of enjoying Baseball, which convincingly portrays his fierce passion with true love for the game and deep attachment for his team. The chemistry between Peter who is inspired by his boss’ uprightness and singleness and his boss is a good watch. Also, the bond between a staying-away daughter and Billy, a caring father even in his post-divorce time, is sweet enough not to take our eyes off them when they join the screen together. The movie doesn’t bore at all but it is certainly not riveting enough throughout its duration either.