The Catcher Was a Spy | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Ben Lewin |
Screenplay by | Robert Rodat |
Based on | The Catcher Was a Spy by Nicholas Dawidoff |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Andrij Parekh |
Edited by | Mark Yoshikawa |
Music by | Howard Shore |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | IFC Films |
Release dates |
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Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $953,953 [1] |
The Catcher Was a Spy is a 2018 American war film directed by Ben Lewin and written by Robert Rodat, based on the book of the same name by Nicholas Dawidoff. It stars Paul Rudd as Moe Berg, a former baseball player who joined the war effort during World War II and participated in espionage for the U.S. Government. Mark Strong, Sienna Miller, Jeff Daniels, Tom Wilkinson, Giancarlo Giannini, Hiroyuki Sanada, Guy Pearce, and Paul Giamatti also star. The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and was released on June 22, 2018, by IFC Films.
Moe Berg, a 15-year baseball veteran, joins the war effort as a spy to beat Nazi Germany in the race to build the first atomic bomb.
In 1936, Berg is playing for the Boston Red Sox near the end of a long and undistinguished pro career. On a goodwill baseball exhibition tour of Japan, Berg sneaks onto the roof of a Tokyo hospital to covertly film Tokyo's harbor and Navy shipyards. The Office of Strategic Services Chief to whom he presents the film is impressed by Berg’s enterprise, as well as the extensive language skills that Berg has picked up at Princeton and elsewhere, and Berg is hired.
Werner Heisenberg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1932 for pioneering quantum physics, is now in charge of the Nazis’ attempts to create an atom bomb. If he succeeds, the Germans could win the war. Berg is smuggled into Italy and then Switzerland, with the task to discover if Heisenberg is anywhere near that goal. If so, it will fall to Berg to assassinate the brilliant physicist.
The project was announced on April 26, 2016, with Ben Lewin hired to direct, Robert Rodat tasked with adapting the biography, and Paul Rudd cast as Moe Berg; PalmStar Media would produce. [2]
In February 2017, Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, Paul Giamatti, Sienna Miller, and Giancarlo Giannini were added to the cast. Filming began on February 13, with filming locations being Prague and Boston. [3] [4] Hiroyuki Sanada was cast in March, [5] with Tom Wilkinson, Connie Nielsen, and Shea Whigham joining in April. [6] Principal photography lasted for 30 days. [7]
Early on in the movie, the "MOVIENEWS CORP" newsreel about the "AMERICAN ALL-STARS TOUR JAPAN", which actually occurred with Babe Ruth and Moe Berg in 1934, is incorrectly dated as "MCMXLIV", meaning "1944". Also, when Berg first visits with Bill Donovan, the nameplate on Donovan's office door says "General" William Donovan, but Donovan was a colonel, as seen by the insignia on his uniform.
The film was set to have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017, [8] but the film was pulled out after it was realized that post-production was not completed in time. [9] It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. [10] IFC Films acquired the film and set a release date of June 22, 2018. [11]
The Catcher Was a Spy made $114,771 from 49 theaters in its opening weekend, for an average of $2,459 per venue. [12]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 32% based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Catcher Was a Spy loses sight of the most interesting elements of its fact-based story, dropping the ball and leaving likable lead Paul Rudd stranded." [13] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [14]
Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti is an American actor. His accolades include a Primetime Emmy Award and three Golden Globes, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and a British Academy Film Award.
Morris Berg was an American professional baseball catcher and coach in Major League Baseball who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League teams, though he was never more than an average player and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball." Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball."
Paul Stephen Rudd is an American actor and comedian. He studied theater at the University of Kansas and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before making his acting debut in 1991. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in July 2015, and was included on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2019. In 2021, he was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive".
Hiroyuki Sanada is a Japanese actor, singer and martial artist. He began his career in the mid-1960s at the age of six, and gained prominence for his roles in Japanese and Hong Kong action films, later establishing himself as a dramatic actor.
Sienna Rose Diana Miller is an American-born British actress. Born in New York City and raised in London, she began her career as a photography model, appearing in the pages of Italian Vogue and for the 2003 Pirelli calendar. Her acting breakthrough came in the 2004 films Layer Cake and Alfie. She subsequently portrayed socialite Edie Sedgwick in Factory Girl (2006) and author Caitlin Macnamara in The Edge of Love (2008), and was nominated for the 2008 BAFTA Rising Star Award. Her role as The Baroness in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) was followed by a brief sabbatical from the screen amid increased tabloid scrutiny.
Nicholas Dawidoff is an American writer.
John Schwab is an American actor, TV producer and musician who resides in London. He produced The Hide with Christopher Granier-Deferre, which was nominated for a BIFA 2010.
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The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg is a 1994 biography written by Nicholas Dawidoff about a major league baseball player who also worked for the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. Moe Berg, the subject of the book, was an enigmatic person who hid much of his private life from those who knew him and who spent his later decades as a jobless drifter living off the good will of friends and relatives.
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