Anytime a sports movie gives us something more than a key win to root for, it's a good thing. This film, which lays the emphasis on baseball management and hiring strategies on the great disadvantage of non-competitively low budgets, had the potential to be something great for that reason. Unfortunately, its extra-innings length takes some spin off the ball.

Back in the day, Billy Beane (Reed Thompson) looked like an outstanding pick for the big leagues. But the qualities that the scouts saw in him quickly sputtered out when he stepped up to the actual plate. Wisely realizing his limits, he quit and opted for a job in management. We see this background in flashback scenes to the main story, which jumps several years.

It's now 2001. General Manager (GM) Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), faces the loss of his three key players at the end of a promising but eventually lost post-season (to the NY Yankees) when the powerhouse trio become free agents. It's his job to replace them but when he goes calling to make trades he quickly finds that Oakland's budget gives him little to work with. That is, until he catches young Peter Brand's (Jonah Hill) action during a contract negotiation.

Beane is alert to this unknown character in the room giving his input to the managerial staff of this other team and later looks him up to squeeze him for what he said during that meeting and why his opinion was sought by the veterans in the room. What he learns is the key to the most amazing year his Oakland A's has ever had.

Representing the origin of new thinking in the major leagues, using player performance and other data to produce statistical potential, Beane is impressed enough not only to buy Brand to work for him, but to courageously commit to employ his computerized methodology to find the replacement talent he so sorely needs. His picks now are players who have some characteristic that has reduced interest in them by the baseball hierarchy but which Brand's numbers reveal excellent potential to satisfy Beane's first criterion -- to get his players on base!

Carrying out this new approach, Beane demonstrates extraordinary skill, timing and humor in negotiating tactics with his competitors in better financed management offices, and he puts together a team that he and Brand think will change the standards in baseball. But not everyone's on board. His own staff is stuck in the traditional approach where old criteria die hard. Beane is surrounded by hostile non-believers who don't believe he can alter the ratio between pay and production.

Then, there's Beane's own manager, Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Pirate Radio"), a resistant old coot if ever there was one, who won't even give the new rookies a chance. If the manager doesn't play the players in the order and positions designed by Beane and Brand to take advantage of their strong points, the whole idea is destined to flop. And so it does, with constant losses in the first part of the season. The Oakland A's are counted out by one and all.

A flaw in the story lies in not explaining why Beane waited so long to counter Howe's obdurate insistance on ignoring Beane's requests even as almost every game goes down in defeat. But when Beane finally does what a GM can do to put his plan into action, that is, cut the team's ace in order to force Howe to play the second string, things not only turn around, but the A's register a record winning streak in the regular season and brings them into contention for the division pennant.

On the personal side, Beane is a divorced father who enjoys cordial relations with Sharon (Robin Wright), his ex, and the critical and loving relationship with his teen daughter Casey (Kerris Dorsey, "Brothers & Sisters" TV series) who is, to him, more important than, even, baseball, as events with show.

Directed by Bennett Miller who replaced first-choice Steven Soderbergh and hasn't had a directorial assignment since the very successful "Capote" in 2005; written by Aaron Sorkin ("The Social Network") and rewritten by Steven Zaillian ("American Gangster"), "Moneyball" is prime time in terms of production and casting.

Director of Photography Wally Pfister ("Inception," "The Dark Knight") captures all the plays and settings with a master's touch for the right modality in arenas to office enclosures. I especially liked the textural accuracy of rough lighting in the corridors where many a clash or quick business deal takes place.

On the casting side, my biggest delight was Jonah Hill's superbly understated character as a nerdly number crusher/analyst with inpenetrable convictions and self-confidence. This after his comedic work in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," "Funny People," etc.

Hoffman, taking on what may be one of the more villainous role of his career, shows with perfect tuning that he can do hateful as well as artful. His character is a triumph of hissability.

But, of course, the movie belongs to Brad Pitt. It's no wonder his name appears above the title in matching, bold type. The geniuses of movie promotion know what they've got here, which is an astoundingly perfect role for one of the most charismatic actors of the time. His comedic timing and satiric delivery, his range of attitudes, his iron-plated confidence and his vulnerabilities are an expression of an actor whose skills have matured to an impressive degree. And that's besides his looks, physicality, magnetic appeal and some choice lines the writers gave him. Plus, he doesn't overdo his fame and success with too many releases.

There's only one detriment in "Moneyball." It's length. I understand that we're stuck in a movie world where admission is so expensive you have to deliver two hours to give folks the feeling of having gotten their money's worth. But the downside is the fatigue that sets in from second act repetition and ennui. At two hours and thirteen minutes, my enjoyment of Pitt & Co. was severely tested. I know I've had all the baseball I can stand, at least for a month or two." Alas, the same applies to Pitt, himself.

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That carp aside, the movie must be applauded for its hard-hitting factual basis, its no-holds-barred tough love in a professional world and a sense of reality that comes from adhering to its source material, the book "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" by Michael Lewis. Keeping the fantasy beast locked up in its own bullpen and keeping the humor, the suspense and the athleticism up makes this an experience worth the ticket price. The insight into the hows and whys of player trading is icing on the cake.

                                      ~~  Jules Brenner