Apparently I’m in a “baseball mood” because I really wanted to watch this movie last night. In case you couldn’t guess from my “Field of Dreams” review, I don’t know anything about baseball nor do I really care about it. However, this movie had me stressed out for over an hour, and I couldn’t even enjoy my Christmas cookies while watching it! (Clarification: I still ate all the cookies, just didn’t enjoy them as much as I usually do). To sum this movie up: Brad Pitt uses math+Jonah Hill to change the game of baseball so that teams with less money, like the Oakland A’s, could win just as much as teams with money, like the New York Yankees. It’s basically the baseball version of the movie “Miracle” except it’s not during the olympics, it has more to do with budgets than all-stars, and nobody rented the movie to see Kurt Russell, where as I BOUGHT this movie for Brad.

In case you’re on the fence about watching yet another baseball movie, here’s a few things that might tip the scale for you:

1) Chris Pratt is in this movie

2) Brad Pitt literally goes ALL IN with his new “math baseball” plan. I really appreciate that. Most sports movies always have the main character waiver at some point with whether they’ve made the right choice about something, and sometimes they even change their mind about the decision they’ve made, thus causing conflict which obviously gets resolved by the end. However in this movie, Brad Pitt commits 100% to his new baseball game idea and it’s invigorating. Also very very stressful.

3) I appreciate tremendously that they never made you watch an entire inning! Everything was always in montage form or simply fast forwarded. Thank you, thank you very much.

4) Jonah Hill is the perfect balance of awkward and brilliant.

5) If you don’t know anything about baseball, you’re in luck! This movie is just about wins and losses and less about the technical stuff, so it’s easy to keep track of the A’s success/failure.

6) If you know a ton about baseball, you’re in luck! They name drop people like crazy and so I’m assuming you’ll enjoy that.

Popcorn Rating: 4 popped corns

Overall this is a very entertaining, very well done movie. I was super emotionally invested the entire time and also wanted a hot dog real bad by the end of it. Not a great date movie only because this will give you anxiety and people tend to not be in their most attractive state when they’re stressed. However, good to watch with your dad or a distant relative.

Happy Baseball-Ing,

PFP