42 – The True Story Of
An American Legend

Film (2013)

With Chadwick Boseman (Jackie Robinson), Harrison Ford (Branch Rickey), Nicole Beharie (Rachel Robinson), Christopher Meloni (Leo Durocher), Ryan Merriman (Dixie Walker), Lucas Black (Pee Wee Reese), Andre Holland (Wendell Smith), Alan Tudyk (Ben Chapman), Hamish Linklater (Ralph Branca), T.R. Knight (Harold Parrott), John C. McGinley (Red Barber)

The overall story of Jackie Robinson’s entry into major league baseball in the late 1940s is well known, but the details, and the characters of the personalities involved, bear retelling.

In short, Branch Rickey, the craggy middle-aged manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, decides he wants to integrate the major leagues and sets out to recruit a black man who is up to the job. He must be someone who is both a superb ball player and someone with a character of steel who will be able to stand up to prejudicial taunting at every turn. Jackie Robinson turns out to be that player and he most ably rises to the occasion.

There are no real surprises in the story here, but this film itself is surprisingly good in telling the familiar tale of Robinson and Rickey. It is so good that, at every turn at which there might be a mawkish moment, real sentiment is generated. These moments arise repeatedly and one is given to genuine, not crocodile, tears when they do.

Harrison Ford, as Branch Rickey, is so fabulously seasoned, nuanced and compelling in this role that it is hard, at this point, to imagine he would not win every award in the book for it. Ford has never really had the opportunity to shine in this way.

His portrayal of Rickey has grit and severity, which we already know Ford can do well. But it also has gravitas and moral force, not necessarily the measures of roles for which he is known. He rises to the occasion, in all dimensions, with an incredible virtuosic flair.

Rickey comes to life and speaks like a prophet in Ford’s rendition. It is fabulous to see him bring all the gusto and wry irony, for which his earlier more romantic roles have prepared him, in the service of this managerial knight of moral persuasion.

Chadwick Boseman, as Jackie Robinson, is, no doubt, a star in the making. He exhibits a solidity of character and a gentleness of disposition that are likely to set him up for other heroic roles. He lends a quiet grandeur and gentle grace to his portrayal, while at the same time exhibiting the intensity of a pot ready to boil over.

Nicole Beharie, as Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s devoted wife, has a believably accessible disposition and radiates intelligence and sensuality in a very appealing combination. It is hard to imagine this not as a star-making opportunity for her as well.

The overall thrust of the film is dramatic, but there are many genuinely humorous lines.

At the very end, there is a clubhouse scene in which a fellow player encourages Jackie to take his shower with the rest of the team. Jackie had hitherto avoided doing so to sidestep potential conflict. The moment is played to the hilt for comedy, and it works hilariously. It is, amazingly, one of the many moments that could be have been very hokey but which turn out, in this finely written and directed film, to be very effective.

This dual portrait of Rickey and Robinson offers a quiet and durable portrait of determined good in the making. In dramatic, but not tempestuous, ways both men evolved, with great discipline, the standards of behavior and character which enabled the once segregated realm of major league baseball to enter the larger field of justice.

The religious inspirations, quoted quite often in this film, that give Rickey a sense of what is right are uttered in ways that make sense and do not seem like caricatures. Coming from his mouth, and paired with the potency of his actions, one gets a sense of the power of vision and the capacity to act upon faith to test and realize nobly envisioned ideals.

The way this film conveys this kind of religious inspiration, and the quietly determined method of its realization, is very moving.

This film, out of the gate, is destined to be one of the great cinematic baseball epics, and, a great moral tale in any arena.

– BADMan