The Catcher Was a Spy (2018)

The Catcher Was a Spy review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Paul Rudd plays somewhat against character in The Catcher Was a Spy by playing Moe Berg, a baseball veteran turned spy against the Nazis. One glance at him and one wouldn’t figure for him to be a spy. Heck, one wouldn’t figure Rudd for a spy picture. And though the film becomes a bit lost in the muck of it all, choosing to let the whiplash of war win over the greater concerns of the character, I must admit that Rudd has a knack for more than his ease of comedy.

Berg’s mission essentially involved trying to make sure that the Nazis never got around to making that atomic bomb so desired as a means of ending the war. But don’t be surprised when the picture doesn’t take a deeper look into the why of such innovation and protection, as Berg seems to be more bound by orders than anything else. This is a bit of a shame considering how much time is reserved for this kinda talk. At one point, we’re introduced to the likes of Werner Heisenberg (Mark Strong) working for the Nazis. While at dinner, someone brings up working for the Nazis being so immoral and ugly. Werner merely gives a “whatever” shrug and remarks that it doesn’t matter to him. A job is a job.

I guess that’s the one part of such a picture that really irked me. It always seems to have a tunnel vision of the mission but never the men. In particular, Berg himself is staged more like a quiet enigma than fully exposing his character. There’s one scene that narrowly misses the mark of being profound when a superior question of whether or not Berg is homosexual. Asked directly, Berg gives the answer “I’m good at keeping secrets.” Let this scene set the tone for how the rest of the film will play out, never answering directly the bigger questions. Wouldn’t want to freak out the homophobic by letting them in on the fact that an American spy and baseball veteran may have been gay. This film is never aiming to be THAT daring.

That being said, there’s some decent tension throughout. There are a few scenes of war that are particularly well staged with the right amount of grit and gunfire. There’s still a bit of unease in these scenes, as when physicist Samuel Goudsmit (Paul Giamatti) finds himself thrown into combat and survives an encounter with a mere bullet zinging across his ear before a Nazi is gunned down by another soldier. Goudsmit is given a quick pat on the back, a smirk-worthy one-liner, and we move one.

I dunno, should a film of this nature feel so brisk and bereft of touching on anything more than a baseball player being a spy? There’s some top talent assembled here and it feels more like they’re walking carefully on ice for a subject that could use a hefty dose of the blunt. Why downplay so many of the interesting and concerning aspects of such an ordeal so that it feels more like an unchallenging war picture of the era it portrays? We know that Strong and Giamatti always bring their A-game but when such a revelation of Rudd bursts onto the screen, I couldn’t help but feel there was more he could do. Had this script had the gravitas to jump head-first into the more controversial aspects of such a story, it could’ve made for a more stirring war drama rather than a standard story. This is a film where Rudd appears more like the plucky player begging for the coach to put him in the game.