Critics' Opinion

Bill Weber's review of Moneyball featuring Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt misses the mark, just as critics of the Bill James' infamous baseball strategy presumed it would. They underestimated the power of systems thinking over goals thinking. Frankly, his words touch the air of an exalted deity deigning to squander his precious leisure nitpicking at mortals' simple romances and haranguing the other gods for their tactless follies. The comments come from one who's certainly watched the movie, but put another way, he hasn't really seen the movie.

But true to Hollywood’s tireless efforts to fit square-peg material into roundish genre niches, this wavering, intermittently smart story of daring to think differently flattens its narrative into formula.

Bill Weber, on Moneyball

The Author's Additions

Weber writes a piece that questions the movie, on the premise it lacks predictability compared to Hollywood tropes, but maintains the narrative falls 'into formula'. Which does he intend? His thickly precocious prose seems to belittle the intangible, invisible 'atmosphere' as painters like Vermeer, Renoir, and other masters captured within their masterpieces.

From the beginning of the film, the premise of the Oakland Athletics success forms an external locus of control for Billy Beane, the team's general manager, to address his internal locus. His personal failures aside, he realizes that more than desire, he might require a process for success.

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The Right Questions

Similarly, people assume that to succeed, the only variable necessary, that exists is the goal. Beane, familiar with failure, reckons against that rationale after coming to the last game of the season. He feels the hot humiliation that follows an understanding of the bitter truth, "2^nd place is the first one who lost".

His clever wiles come from experience, not idle chatter as this scouts team represents. Whether or not persons real or fictional behaved in this manner miss the point largely, as a tourist visiting a popular destination might turn around and photograph the scene over the landmark. Within the visual arts, realism originates from reality- where fact sometimes looks funnier than fiction. The fact most want to call fiction is human emotion.

A fear of change grips Beane's sports program, much more than a fear of failure. To shirk conventional wisdom, carving out a new path entirely driven by a true North Star is not only one nationality's dream, but the human dream: ambition. We are social creatures, seeking acceptance, until we realize there are greater values to behold than mere agreeability. Victory, for example, matters more to Beane than any of the furniture
he wrecks or feathers he ruffles.

"It's a problem you think we have to explain ourselves."

^{What do you think?}

"Don't. To anyone."

^{An underrated lesson about conviction:}

^{Beane made a championship contender with 90 million less than the Yankees. That's how you really win: don't break the bank.}

Don't. To anyone.

The film, as Bill Weber might have it, gives the audience "tonal whiplash"- the record-breaking 20^th consecutive win "meant nothing" to Billy Beane and supposedly, people face a snapback from this conclusion.

If people didn't understand Beane by this point, they might as well admire the handsome Pitt and quiet, but informed Hill and "just enjoy the show". But, as this author reckons, more people resonate with Billy Beane's insatiable ambition to succeed, for a key reason. Merit over money. He despises Boston and New York's "big budget" strategy, sees validity in an undervalued, underutilized motley crew of unassuming players- "the Island of Misfit Toys".

The metaphor speaks to big business versus mom-and-pop shops, the underdog versus the champion, the overleveraged banks v. taxpayers like you- people 'see' themselves; they're not just 'watching' a father wrestling with insecurity from a divorce and floundering team or a dedicated watcher with an eye for relevant details.

The narrative touches base so many years later, since its production and the accompanying hot-take review, to a different subject: the future of work. With more possibilities driven by the power of AI, prediction machines , the soft skills required to make judgements, will remain largely human decisions, emboldening a new kind of worker. Columbia Pictures knew to capture Beane as a man who knew he was changing the game. For that, not only does Moneyball challenge everyone to think differently, it rewrites the Hollywood script of only fantasy features mystifying audiences. It shows even true stories can flip the script.