No matter what you’ve heard, this movie is not about baseball. There’s baseball in it, of course. A lot of baseball. This movie, however, is about Brad Pitt’s face. It’s about his face looking smug, looking nervous, looking exasperated. I’m not sure I can blame the director, as Pitt is an expensive hire and he has the superpower of not looking like ass when blown up to 40 feet high. Also the script is about statistics even more than it’s about baseball, and statistics are cinematic poison. No one wants to watch spreadsheets on the big screen. So, you make the movie about Brad Pitt’s giant face.

As far as the face goes, he has completed his transformation into mid-career Robert Redford. Which is nice, face-wise. You could do a lot worse.

For a movie about the visually stupefying subject of statistical analysis, it’s pretty good. Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman all do yeoman’s work in parts that are a little underwritten. With the exception of a rather cruel portrait of Pitt’s ex-wife’s new husband, even the supporting characters are several notches better than you’d expect in a sports-themed movie.

Perfectly valid matinee pick, or Redbox rental sometime after Xmas. Especially if you like stat nerds or Brad Pitt’s grille.