After walking out of the theater I had one word stuck in my head: Quiet.
Yes, this movie has a subdued, quiet feel to it. Very introspective and digestible, but not in some arrogant fancy-pants art-house way. Just as it hypes up the romance of baseball, it smacks those notions to the ground with immediate brute force. But that's the point of Moneyball, stats triumph over mystique, guts and intuition. Its like counting cards, but with baseball players and the stats they can deliver... and the Yankees represent beating the house.
If you don't know diddly about baseball, I'd recommend reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Oakland_Athletics_season to get a sense of the historical context of the season and what was happening. One thing the movie is strangely silent on, is the pitching staff that was lights out that year with Zito and Tejada. I'm guessing the pitching story-line was ignored to save time to focus on Billy Bean, David Justice and Scott Hatteberg.
The acting was well done and Brad Pitt was great in this role. As usual, what pushed this film from good to great (for me) is the score by Mychael Danna. It truly captured the emotion of the protagonist and the pensive nature of baseball. Danna also scored 500 Days of Summer and I'm becoming a fan of his work.
Of course, being someone who works with data to find answers (how vague is that!?), I loved the stats and analytic approach to baseball. But the heart and soul of this movie was its story about a man facing his demons and never giving up. And like most of us, he still hasn't won everything and has plenty of critics. There is no perfect happy ending, but the satisfaction of the journey and personal growth. So now that I've made it sound like going to see this film is a religious experience, get your knees and pray for forgiveness that you haven't seen it yet. Perhaps the cruel gods of baseball who favor the Yankees so much will not smite you.
