I cannot fathom why it was I decided to watch this movie. My guess is that I hate baseball so much that watching someone break the system would make me feel better. Or it’s because I secretly have a crush on Brad Pitt and his name is so large on the movie poster that you need to look twice to find the actual title.

Anyway, some guy invents some system on how you should draft players solely based on their statistics, instead of basing it on irrelevant factors like age, appearance, personality, etc. For example, they decide to draft this short guy because his height causes him to get a lot of walks. Brad Pitt decides to follow this strategy and after a rocky start, his team starts winning and makes it to the playoffs. This is despite having around 1/4 the overall budget of bigger teams like the Yankees. Then he gets offered some job by the Red Sox for a shit ton of money because apparently he revolutionized baseball.

This movie isn’t bad, by any stretch of the imagination. There’s nothing wrong with the acting or story. Everything flows reasonably well and there are a few funny moments. However, at the end of the movie, I just thought “OK” and left. I didn’t really think about the movie while driving home and promptly forgot about it as soon as I started doing something else. The movie just barely held my attention for it’s duration and as soon as it finished, there was no reason anymore to give it another thought.

Maybe it’s because I’m not an Oakland A’s fan or a baseball fan. Or maybe it’s because the entire movie was based on the mundane task of using math and spreadsheets to excel at a game. Or maybe it’s because they shot too many closeups of Brad Pitt’s frustrated face when they lost games, which I swear happened at least half a dozen times. Whatever the case is, the movie is OK to watch but in my opinion doesn’t have any lasting impact.

Edit: Now I remember why I wanted to see this movie. It’s because Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is in it. I think his appearance is the only reason I even knew the movie existed.