Doctor Omega
Member: Rank 10
The Catcher Was A Spy
Director: Ben Lewin (“The Sessions,” “The Dunera Boys”)
Cast: Paul Rudd, Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, Paul Giamatti, Sienna Miller
Details: The film adaptation of Nicholas Dawidoff’s novel sees the welcome return of the underrated “The Sessions” director Ben Unwin to tackle this tale of Moe Berg, a closeted Jewish Ivy League graduate and major league baseball catcher who joined the war effort during World War II and partook in espionage for the U.S. Government to try and stop Werner Heisenberg building an atomic bomb for the Nazis.
The script comes from “Saving Private Ryan” scribe Robert Rodat and the cast is ridiculously strong with Paul Rudd as Moe along with a supporting cast that includes Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, Paul Giamatti, Sienna Miller, Giancarlo Giannini, Hiroyuki Sanada, Mark Strong, Tom Wilkinson and Connie Nielsen. The film was to premiere at Toronto this year but didn’t finish post-production in time and so has been held back until Sundance where it will unspool next month.