| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| randall |
Posted - 09/20/2011 : 04:09:54
It's all about Brad Pitt, but this is the best extended work I've ever seen him give. Baseball is the backdrop, not the raison, similar to the relationship betweeen ballet and BLACK SWAN: you don't have to know diddly about the sport to appreciate the struggle between the hidebound and the forward-thinking. This time, though, there are human beings in the middle, as Pitt and his computer-nerd sidekick Jonah Hill try to dive down deep into the most stat-riddled sport on earth, and find a clever way to stand toe to toe with big-market leviathans in passed-over Oakland, California.
Pitt is not angelic here: he actually lets you see some lines on the face, and not in the self-congratulating BENJAMIN BUTTON style. A real person, carefully wrought. Philip Seymour Hoffman has one note as Pitt's recalcitrant manager, but from that note he never wavers. Then there's a rep company of "baseball players": it's all about the actors, not about baseball at all. Nicely done. I wouldn't be surprised to see it cited come Oscar time. |
|
|
