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How can you not get romantic about baseball?


Moneyball
(2011)

The All the President's Men of baseball movies? In terms of selling dense material in an involving but unashamedly talky way, it very nearly is. Bennett Miller's film tells the story of the general manager of the Oakland As' use of statistical data to pick a team where money is an object. 

It unfolds in a mostly measured and unshowy fashion, not bashful about respecting its audience's intelligence or feeling the need to "sexy up" what writers Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin know will be an engrossing subject if given space to breathe. Brad Pitt's winning, but most impressive is Jonah Hill's underplayed statistician.

****
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