Going through recent Oscar contenders, I find another movie that I like well enough but do not hold worthy of an Oscar consideration. It gave me a glimpse into inner workings of a baseball franchise, which I always find fascinating (although I have little doubt that the eponymous book on which the movie is based goes much farther in that respect), but spent way too much time focused on solitary emotions portrayed by Brad Pitt.
I have a feeling that only a baseball fan can have an immersive experience with this film. Natasha watched with me mainly because of Brad and I had to pause the disk on a couple of occasions to translate baseball lingo for her. “National pastime” or not, I know a fair number of naturally-born Americans who are indifferent to sports and to baseball in particular, and I am not sure that Pitt’s customary excellent display in a dominant leading role would compensate for the specificity of the setting and the plot in terms of overall appreciation.
If anyone found otherwise, please let me know.
I am one of naturally-born Americans who are indifferent to sports and to baseball in particular. I did watch and like like Field of Dreams and Bull Durham, but generally I don’t watch sports movies.
This is definitely a sports movie, even though the underlying theme is not that far from, say, The Social Network – a driven visionary whose personal experience leads him to believe in an unorthodox idea and to take risks to prove its worth. But unlike Bull Durham, where baseball was more of a background for human stories, the specifics of the sport play a significant role in Moneyball.