The movie revolves around Moe Berg, the baseball player whose life takes another turn when Office of Strategic Services asked him to do a job for his home. At this time, there is a German scientist, Werner Heisenberg, who tries to make an atomic bomb for the Nazis. Moe has to stop him from doing this.
Handsome cinematography fails to disguise the low production value, and constant cross-cutting between strategy meetings and the mission itself make both parts of the sandwich feel moldy.
Like deserting the movie somewhere between subversive and derivative, the filmmakers struggle to show Berg both as an average bum and as a brainy badass.
If it wasn't a true story, it would be ridiculous. But the problem with Ben Lewin's film isn't the plausibility of the storyline, it's the execution of the plot, which comes off like a stiff noir rather than a crackling thriller.
The movie is well-crafted, but it doesn't have the fullness you'd expect in a movie with so much believe-it-or-not weirdness. It feels more like a nifty anecdote.
