Catching balls and baddies
Moe Berg was an odd duck. The man who played 15 seasons for a handful of major league teams came to be known as the "brainiest guy in baseball"; he was also a U.S. government spy. Despite the colorful character at its center, and a likable if impassive performance by Paul Rudd, "The Catcher Was a Spy" (⋆⋆, rated R for some sexuality, violence and coarse language) is a dutiful laundry list of a biopic, ticking off boxes in Berg's career — genius, athlete, loner, secular Jew, secret agent and perhaps a closeted gay man — but never shedding light on what makes him tick. MICHAEL O'SULLIVAN, Washington Post
