With a whole new understanding of “Take me out to the Ballgame” our story opens on October 15, 2001. Johnny Damon is a free agent, and First Baseman, Giambi, too. The Yankees are worth 114 million and the Oakland A’s only 39 million, so how can a team win a World Series without the clout/finances needed to trade players? Apparently, it’s money – not the old-fashioned love of our grandpas up in the bleachers – that wins the game.
There’s also some philosophy, that General Manager, Billy Bean (Brad Pitt) believes. Something as simple like: if a player “has an ugly girlfriend it means he has low self-esteem.” It’s this type of fabulous banter that circulates a round table of executives who strategize how to pull off a winning season without the cash required to trade players. Or as Bean says “Rich teams, poor teams, 50 feet of crap and then there’s us.”
Enter Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who’s an assistant for the scouts. His Yale degree in economics and his computer skills for analogies smell like a winner to Bean. But when he recruits young Brand, the other team members aren’t happy about it, especially Art Howe (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) but Brand’s earnest attempt to believe in Bean’s vision makes the two a winning team in their own relationship. Of course we all know the A’s will go on to win the most consecutive wins – 20 – in history.
In so far the unmatched best script of the year, Oscar winning screenwriters Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin deliver a universal product ten years in the making. Reminiscent of last year’s Social Network (which was released about this time last autumn) Sorkin has clearly done it again by weaving the fine art of politics into emotions, coupled with greed. It’s refreshing to see a film so well-crafted, that can move at an elegant snail’s pace but stay riveting throughout its two- plus hours. And then you’re saddened to see it done.
With the mix of hope, underdog, and a bit screwball pulling at your heart strings, Pitt’s rich performance – in which he literally channels a combo of the real life Bean and Robert Redford – is destined to hear the words “Best Actor of the Year.” Even Jonah Hill could be considered Best Support Actor.
A high fly homerun, this film has Academy Award and World Series written all over it. Four tiaras