Simon Dillon reviews the film

My boss has a saying: There's the right way to do things, and the other way.

Moneyball is all about doing things the other way. Based on real events, the film tells the story of Oakland Athletic's general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), and his struggle to build a World Series winning baseball team with a very small budget. To do this, he enlists the help of Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who has come up with a radical maths-based system of putting together a team of overlooked players that won't cost millions but will - he projects - win. Billy and Peter meet resistance from the old guard who are angered at their attempts to build a team based on statistics and figures, and at first it seems these veterans might be proved right. Until.

Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where the story is headed, but what makes director Bennett Millar's film interesting is the way he manages to create genuine drama and tension out of statistical analysis. Facts and figures aren't something that naturally interest me. In fact, if I were a character in the film, I can imagine I would find myself firmly on the sceptical side of those who prefer the intuitive, experience-based approach to building a baseball team. Yet in spite of this, Moneyball does evolve into a very unusual underdog story. The excellent performances help - not just from Brad Pitt (who like George Clooney is one of the very few movie stars left in the world), but also Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the team's reluctant coach, and Jonah Hill, who deftly plays against type with his quiet, serious character.

Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin's screenplay fleshes out Billy's determination to fundamentally change baseball. It transpires that Billy was a baseball player himself, who was discovered by talent scouts and subsequently urged to give up a university scholarship. But as a player he didn't work out - a fact which he blames the baseball orthodoxy for; and its philosophy of, as Peter puts it, buying players rather than runs. Billy often comes across as a tragic, disappointed figure alienated from his wife; though his relationship with his daughter is very touching, and his determination to see his idea through is undeniably inspirational.

As in all baseball movies, the baseball itself is incidental, metaphorical, and in this case largely off-camera. Moneyball is really about loss, disappointment, faith and, as I mentioned before, doing things the other way.