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42 (2013)
Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford. Directed by Brian Helgeland.
Something I have never been able to understand about American history is how the American Civil War ended in 1865 but it took until 1947 for Jackie Robinson to be allowed to play baseball on the same field as white men. I get that change takes time, but eighty-two years? Add another twenty for the Civil Rights movement to come to a close, and you’ve got a picture you just can’t admire about our country. Was it ignorance or hate that was so deeply engrained in our culture that we could accept these conditions for so long? And does it even matter, when the fruit of that tree, whatever it was, was so awful?
I wasn’t expecting 42 to give me answers to my questions. All I wanted from this first contemporary cinematic telling of the Jackie Robinson story was a fair portrayal of what the legendary second-baseman had to put up with just to pick up a baseball bat in the Major Leagues. If some of the telling tilted toward myth over accuracy, I could live with it as long as long as some of Robinson’s personal struggle to maintain his public dignity was presented in a non-cartoonish way.
What I really wanted was a movie that kids could be compelled to see so that Robinson’s legacy would become part of the consciousness of a new generation, and not merely something to be dusted off every February for Black History Month. In this respect, 42 is successful, and it made me want to have kids just so I could drag them into the theater and make them watch this movie.
Chadwick Boseman plays Robinson just about the way I expected, which is to say about as straight as possible. My only real complaint about the performance itself is that while Boseman cages his anger effectively, what he never does is communicate a love for the game of baseball. Maybe Robinson didn’t communicate that in his first few years, but it would have been nice to see the second baseman have fun within the game itself, racist teammates and opponents notwithstanding. Maybe that’s asking a bit much. I know I wouldn’t have fun at my job if I had to work with people like that.
Harrison Ford is the also-legendary Branch Rickey, the managing executive of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Robinson and directed him to be “man enough not to fight back.” Ford has been most annoying in his older years, an unpleasant interview on late-night talk-shows and less than enjoyable on screen. He’s mostly that here, too, but once the viewer is submerged in the reality of Robinson’s situation, it’s a lot easier to see Rickey as one of two lifelines in this socio-athletic endeavor (the other being Robinson’s wife, played nicely by Nicole Beharie) and then it becomes easier to see that Ford is putting a lot of thought into his performance, punctuating sentences with labored, deep breathing and the almost unnoticeable grunting of an old man trying to do something right.
All things considered, 42 is good, but not great, and that’s good enough for me, because the story itself is great. It’s important, and people should know it even on the basic, factual level this film offers.
7/10 (IMDb rating)
72/100 (Criticker rating)
Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford. Directed by Brian Helgeland.
Something I have never been able to understand about American history is how the American Civil War ended in 1865 but it took until 1947 for Jackie Robinson to be allowed to play baseball on the same field as white men. I get that change takes time, but eighty-two years? Add another twenty for the Civil Rights movement to come to a close, and you’ve got a picture you just can’t admire about our country. Was it ignorance or hate that was so deeply engrained in our culture that we could accept these conditions for so long? And does it even matter, when the fruit of that tree, whatever it was, was so awful?
I wasn’t expecting 42 to give me answers to my questions. All I wanted from this first contemporary cinematic telling of the Jackie Robinson story was a fair portrayal of what the legendary second-baseman had to put up with just to pick up a baseball bat in the Major Leagues. If some of the telling tilted toward myth over accuracy, I could live with it as long as long as some of Robinson’s personal struggle to maintain his public dignity was presented in a non-cartoonish way.
What I really wanted was a movie that kids could be compelled to see so that Robinson’s legacy would become part of the consciousness of a new generation, and not merely something to be dusted off every February for Black History Month. In this respect, 42 is successful, and it made me want to have kids just so I could drag them into the theater and make them watch this movie.
Chadwick Boseman plays Robinson just about the way I expected, which is to say about as straight as possible. My only real complaint about the performance itself is that while Boseman cages his anger effectively, what he never does is communicate a love for the game of baseball. Maybe Robinson didn’t communicate that in his first few years, but it would have been nice to see the second baseman have fun within the game itself, racist teammates and opponents notwithstanding. Maybe that’s asking a bit much. I know I wouldn’t have fun at my job if I had to work with people like that.
Harrison Ford is the also-legendary Branch Rickey, the managing executive of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Robinson and directed him to be “man enough not to fight back.” Ford has been most annoying in his older years, an unpleasant interview on late-night talk-shows and less than enjoyable on screen. He’s mostly that here, too, but once the viewer is submerged in the reality of Robinson’s situation, it’s a lot easier to see Rickey as one of two lifelines in this socio-athletic endeavor (the other being Robinson’s wife, played nicely by Nicole Beharie) and then it becomes easier to see that Ford is putting a lot of thought into his performance, punctuating sentences with labored, deep breathing and the almost unnoticeable grunting of an old man trying to do something right.
All things considered, 42 is good, but not great, and that’s good enough for me, because the story itself is great. It’s important, and people should know it even on the basic, factual level this film offers.
7/10 (IMDb rating)
72/100 (Criticker rating)
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