Review: The Catcher Was a Spy

If you didn't know who Morris "Moe" Berg was before seeing The Catcher Was a Spy, you won't necessarily know who he was after the viewing. The man was, as the film itself acknowledges, an enigma and, though the filmmakers attempt to flesh out a figure who has spent most of his life blending in and keeping secrets, there's nothing more there that couldn't have been learned from the title cards that bookend the film.

Based on Nicholas Dawidoff's best-seller of the same name, the film begins in 1944 Zurich, though quickly rewinds to 1936 when Moe (Paul Rudd) was at the tail end of his career as a Major League baseball catcher. With his unmarried status, intelligence (he's a popular fixture on quiz shows), and protectiveness of his privacy, his sexual orientation is questioned by his teammates. The film has Moe respond to this by beating up the rookie player who strongly implied he was gay and then going to his girlfriend Estella's (Sienna Miller, unable to do much with a truly nothing role) place and having heated sex with her.

This is soon followed by scenes featuring Japanese delegate Isao Kawabata (Hiroyuki Sanada), whom Moe meets during a goodwill baseball tour in Japan. Their encounter encompasses both the personal and political. The two acknowledge that war between their countries is likely to be inevitable. Moe confides that he was always trying to fit in by hiding a part of himself, whether it be his Jewishness or something else. Kawabata, married with six children, replies, "I like hiding, too." The scene, and the ensuing implication that the two men would spend the night together, is chaste and coy and certainly more compelling than anything else in the film. Their meeting is arguably the best moment of The Catcher Was a Spy and one almost wishes that the filmmakers would have taken dramatic license and positioned Kawabata as Moe's target. What a spy film that could have been!

Alas, we are left with the one we have and so the film goes through the motions of having Moe recruited by the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) to help them on their latest mission. According to intelligence officer Robert Furman (Guy Pearce) and physicist Samuel Goudsmit (Paul Giamatti), the Germans have begun working on creating an atom bomb just as the Americans have started the Manhattan Project and Moe's task is to suss out if Werner Heisenberg (Mark Strong) is involved and, if he is, to shoot him dead. On paper, it should be a cracking espionage thriller. On film, it's curiously devoid of any dramatic tension. One can't help but be reminded of Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies which, in many respects, is the film The Catcher Was a Spy wishes it could be in quality and execution.

A whole list of fine actors like Pearce, Giamatti, Strong, Tom Wilkinson, Jeff Daniels, and the legendary Giancarlo Giannini are wasted in barely sketched supporting roles. With his All-American, boy-next-door handsomeness, Rudd certainly looks the part (though doesn't exactly resemble the real Berg) but doesn't fully connect with a character that we're constantly told is a mystery man and a riddle.

The Catcher Was a Spy

Directed by: Ben Lewin

Written by: Robert Rodat; based on the biography The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg

Starring: Paul Rudd, Connie Nielsen, Mark Strong, Sienna Miller, Guy Pearce, Paul Giamatti, Jeff Daniels, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tom Wilkinson, Shea Whigham, Giancarlo Giannini