A good behind-the-scenes movie about baseball.
In general, sports-themed movies are not strictly my piece of cake, I prefer to see other things. But this film already had an interesting list of award nominations, which includes six Oscars (Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing and Best Sound Mixing) and three BAFTA, with in none of these cases it came out victorious. And the truth is that there are a lot of very good films in which the theme is sport.
The theme of this film is quite simple and, however, very well-used: the director of a medium-sized baseball team finds himself in the need to recruit new players and, to a certain extent, compete on an equal footing with stronger teams. and with more money in their pockets to spend. In order to balance things out, he rethinks the entire team's strategy, from the way they recruit and evaluate players to what goes on the pitch. Therefore, it is a movie about baseball, but with very little action and game played, which is not exactly what sports movie fans prefer. I personally liked it, because it gives us an idea of what goes on behind the scenes of these high competition teams, in the offices and in the dressing room. And it was interesting to see how math, statistics and number analysis can be decisive in choosing certain players and game strategies. A subject of little interest, which seems dry and too technical, has thus become an excellent screenplay.
Brad Pitt is a good actor and uses all his charisma and presence in this film. The actor is able to lead and guide us through the entire film and ensures a very satisfactory performance throughout the entire production. Also, Jonah Hill does a pretty good job as a creative mathematician who seems to be in the least likely position for a numbers man. On the other hand, I didn't particularly like Seymour Hoffman's work on this film. I think the actor was not given material to match his abilities and had little screen time and very little to do. So it's not the actor's fault...
The direction of Bennett Miller does a generally decent job, and ensures a very good pace to the film, with a dynamism that prevents the film from falling into the doldrums. The cinematography is very sharp, dynamic and colorful, and the sets are very good, especially the countryside and the bathhouses, with all the details. The sound effects are quite good, and the soundtrack is discreet but competent.
