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THE CATCHER WAS A SPY

By Ben LEWIN

Drama - Completed 2017

Festivals
& Awards

Sundance Film Festival 2018

Premieres

- Year of production
- 2017
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- USA
- Languages
- ENGLISH, JAPANESE, ITALIAN, FRENCH, GERMAN, DUTCH
- Duration
- 94 mn
- Director(s)
- Ben LEWIN
- Synopsis
- In the midst of World War II, major league catcher Moe Berg (Paul Rudd) is drafted to join a new team: the Office of Security Services (the precursor to the CIA). No ordinary ballplayer, the erudite, Jewish Ivy League graduate speaks nine languages and is a regular guest on a popular TV quiz show. Despite his celebrity, Berg is an enigma—a closeted gay man with a knack for keeping secrets. The novice spy is quickly trained and sent into the field to stop German scientist Werner Heisenberg before he can build an atomic bomb for the Nazis.
  
  Director Ben Lewin’s (The Sessions) fascinating political thriller follows Berg from the bullpen to behind enemy lines. Rudd’s sly performance brings the charming, chameleonic catcher to life with the support of a crackerjack cast, including Jeff Daniels and Guy Pearce as seasoned spies and Paul Giamatti as a Dutch physicist. Adapted by Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan) from Nicholas Dawidoff’s 1994 biography, The Catcher Was a Spy tells one of the great unsung tales of American espionage.