Moneyball

“Moneyball” stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team, whose exploits were originally recited in the non-fiction book “Moneyball, the Art of Winning in an Unfair Game” written by Michael Lewis. Taken with the story Brad Pitt, in the role as Producer, sought the services of his friend, Steven Soderbergh (with whom he worked in “Ocean’s Eleven”) and began production in conjunction with Sony Pictures. Differences later arose between the studio and Soderbergh who then left the film. Just as A’s General Manager Beane was forced to regroup and create a new team when his stars left to go to higher paying clubs, so did Pitt, in a real life dramatization of the Beane character’s problems, seek and get Scott Rudin to join Pitt, Michael DeLuca and Rachel Horvitz as one of the film’s producers. Rudin’s prior association with Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”) brought Sorkin on board to work on Steve Zaillian’s script and thus create the finished product.. Also, like the story of Beane, Pitt got a new director, Bennett Miller (known for low budget films (“Capote”). Again the similarity between life and art is striking (no pun intended). This is a movie rich with the tradition of the sport and an insight as to how high financed clubs can dominate league play. More importantly, it represents how a new approach, dictated by economic needs and lack of funds, can alter conventional attitudes and bring about the unthinkable i.e.a team with a 39 million dollar budget outperforming those having four or five times that sum. Joining Pitt as the maverick general manager is Jonah Hill who portrays what some believe is Paul Podesta, an ivy league economics major who helps the Pitt character look at statistics in a whole new light. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the field manager This is a Cinderella story which sees the team win an unprecedented 20 games in a row, the first time this ever occurred in the 103 year history of the sport.. More importantly, it is the story of resilience, confidence and focus and is all the more meaningful because it really happened. Of course a love of baseball is an added plus for any viewer of the film but the writing and directing are of such a high quality that even those unfamiliar with the sport will enjoy the story and its message. I give the film 3 and ½ stars with special kudos to Mr. Pitt who showed that in baseball and in show business, tenacity and dedication can still get big “hits”.

Contagion

“Contagion” stars Lawrence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow in this 105 minute film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott Z. Burns. This is a poorly written and directed film with skimpy production values and characters who are two dimensional.. Faced with so many named stars, one would expect a film that might support such a cast. Instead, it is a letdown. The viewer simply has a "who cares" attidue about each of them.The character played by Jude Law is more an intrusion into the film than any positive addition. One can only try to figure out the meaning of the film’s title as one can try to understand the casting of Elliot Gould as one of the world’s leading biology researchers. As the line in the film goes “If Sussman (Gould’s character) doesn’t get it…no one will” In this instance the writer is right…no one gets it. Touted as the great dethroner to box office leader “The Help” I would tell the producers of “Help” that if good taste and quality filmmaking still prevail, they needn’t worry. I give the film 2 stars and am probably being overly generous in doing that.

The Debt

“The Debt” is the story of three Israeli Mossad agents and the events that took place 30 years ago, what takes place years later and how the two time spans interact into their personal, political and professional lives. The film stars Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain and Helen Mirren in this intended cold war thriller. This is a remake of a 2007 Israeli film entitled “Ha Hov” (i.e. “The Debt” in Hebrew). Directed by John Madden (“Shakespeare In Love”) and co-written by Mathew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan, the film is, supposedly based on actual occurrences. On paper, at least, it has all the ingredients for an adventure film with a great plot. Unfortunately, the movie moves rather slowly and is tedious at times as it gets a little too involved in the personal lives of the Mossad agents while not going deep enough into the world of significant political events taking place around them. In fairness to the performances and certain segments of the screenplay, the film does manage to hold the audience’s interest in spite of its almost 2 hour duration which, quite honestly, seemed longer than that. I give the film 2 and ½ stars with a concern that its title may be the precursor for the amount appearing on Miramax’ balance sheet after the grosses are computed.