42 (2013) Directed by Brian Helgeland. Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, & Nicole Beharie. IMDB says: “The life story of Jackie Robinson and his history-making signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers under the guidance of team executive Branch Rickey.”
42 tells an important story intersecting America’s harrowing civil rights, African American, and sports history centered on the very recognized player Jackie Robinson. He was the first African American Major League Baseball player in case you’ve been living under a rock. He debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, picked for the team and nurtured by then owner Branch Rickey. Robinson had to deal with immense racism to make his mark in history as he broke that barrier and carried that weight on his soldiers. The film does a fantastic job showcasing not only his talent but his great strength when dealing with people with very small minds and way too much power. The one issue with this film is despite the greatness of the person, there isn’t quite enough drama to raise this movie into greatness itself.
Robinson (excellent little known Chadwick Boseman) had an amazing relationship with his wife who gave him much courage during this time. He doesn’t deal with many other personal issues besides you know, terrible racism being directed to him in ignorant and sometimes threatening ways. That is enough to impact any viewer, but it still doesn’t transcend beyond a sort of obvious compelling point. I don’t want to sound like I’m minimizing the issue, because every scene featuring these racists effected me, but this films falls into the trap of moving from one biopic bullet point to the next without really giving you much to chew on unless you weren’t aware of this to begin with. Save for one freak out by Robinson that didn’t even last past the start of the next inning, he remains stoic and steadfast pretty much throughout the film. Amazing man.
There are definitely reasons to seek this film out and they’re almost all actors. Boseman, Harrison Ford, and Nicole Beharie (as Rachel Robinson) are great in the lead roles. They are a fairly unwavering force. There’s a whole laundry list of fantastic supporting performances–Christopher Meloni as the gossip-inducing Dodgers Manager, Alan Tudyk as the asshole racist Phillies manager who manages to use the N-word 5000 times, John C. McGinley as the sportscaster with all the one liners, and Lucas Black as the welcoming Dodgers shortstop. Those are just a few of the performances that I could name. Unfortunately there weren’t many women in the movie but I guess that comes with the territory.
Overall, this is a perfectly decent movie. It doesn’t reach dramatic heights and most likely won’t make any waves come awards season but the performances make the movie. And maybe this movie doesn’t need to be more than how it turned out because it certainly honors the great Jackie Robinson in a film deserving of his story.
The movie 42 is a movie that gets better as it progresses from a first half seemingly aimed towards Oscar bait. While I could see the Academy enjoying a film like this, it’s always weird to see a film that feels like they are trying hard to model their film after previous nominees. I knew of the writer’s previous screenplays before this film, but the first half of the film seemed like it was written by a team of newcomers trying to write obvious movie scenes.
Any boredom I felt during the first half was washed away in the second half, though. Around the time that Jackie Robinson is signed to the Dodgers, the film picks up and finally becomes immersing. It seems less like a straight recount of history and more of a film that is also trying to entertain.
Comparing to the last baseball movie I’ve seen, this movie doesn’t seem to have the same appeal that Moneyball had. The dialogue in Moneyball was way more natural and added a lot to the film. As opposed to 42, where a number of lines came off as sappy and embellished. Not that any part of the film seemed implausible, however, just that it seemed the writers wanted every other line to be overtly impressive. I’m thinking of Dodgers owner Branch Rickey’s dialogue, played by Harrison Ford, specifically. This fades towards the end of the movie and the dialogue seems to become more genuine.
Baseball fans should still really like 42, but I don’t think the film is going to reach more than sports fans and moviegoers who enjoy biopics. A lot of this film’s success may end up being based on Jackie Robinson’s popularity and not the movie directly.
