Directed by Bennett Miller 

I hate losing. I 'hate' it. I hate losing more than I even wanna win. 


Baseball is one game that I got attached to while I was fond of video games. I used to love playing it, but I have never seen it on T.V or played in real. There are many rules or terms related to the game that I ain't aware of. Yet, very rarely in the film I get a problem with that, because of the kind of screenplay the film has chosen to have. 

Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) who didn't have a successful career as a baseball player, is now a General Manager of a club team 'Oakland A's'. Its a team that just lost the final game in the league series and has been on the low side. Three of its players have now shifted to different team, and Billy who is having a financial problem to trade big players has to re-build a new team. By the help of Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who is good at handling statistics being a economics student, Billy aims to re-construct a new team on basis of computer stats of various players. A strategy that works, and yet doesn't work out for him. 

The screenplay is very well divided into two segments that runs parallely, one of Billy as a General Manager trying to survive and make his team become a winning team, while other is of Billy in his teenage who is about to chose between becoming a baseball player or doing his scholarship. 

The director never tries to narrate the film through baseball complete games, instead he uses montages of games, most of the times montages of 1-2 best moments or shots of a game. The focus always remains on the stats and the trading that goes behind the back. That's one of the main reasons why the film works, plus the ending which is very unlike a sports film you usually would see. 

The conversations between Peter and Billy, Billy's arguements with the club members and owner, and his emotional side when with his daughter, driving car thinking of his past un-successful career as a player, frustrated with Art/Grady for not believing in his strategies or his dilemna to watch/listen a game avoiding jinxing are some of best moments of the film. 

'The show' track lines are brilliantly used twice in the film, once directly and other time on Billy. 'I am just a little bit caught in the middle. Life is a maze, Love is a riddle. I don't know where to go,can't do it alone'. The dialogues are good. Nice editing, there are many extreme close up shots used in the film. 

Brad Pitt performance is very good as a coach. He is mostly seen as a humurous (mostly with Peter) and angry (with Art and Grady) person while having conversations with people. The emotional side is mostly shown in no dialogue sequences, especially the car driving shots at night. Though, there is a slight over-dose of the car sequences at a point. Plus, watch him feeling uneasy during every game, he won't see the game, won't listen commentary, because he believes he would jinx it.

Jonah Hill is simply hillarious throughout the movie. Specially his sequences with Billy in the film, when he first time has a conversation with him about it being his first job ever, or when Billy tells him how to tell a player about the trade happened, or the joy shown unlike Billy does when a very successful trade happens on phone. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman (Art Howe) is natural as always, a no nonsense guy who is stubborn about his beliefs. Seeing by his perspective, he isn't wrong yet if you go by the change Billy brings about, he was wrong. 

Special mention to the home run sequence, very funny it was. 


In the end, Moneyball is a very good sports film that talks about the the trading of players and statistics as means of buidling a good baseball team. The hardships faced by the coach with all the opposition from the club people he works for, and his own bad past of un-successful baseball player makes it a intriguing watch, and add to it the unusual finish to the film.