42 Review
Director: Brian Helgeland
Writer: Brian Helgeland
Starring: 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).
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 128min
Making
a movie about racism or any other form of bigotry, even a historical drama
about someone overcoming such bigotry, can be difficult. A filmmaker these days
has to portray the evils of racism without coming across as preachy and turning
off his audience. Stop the movie so you can give the audience a sermon they
already know and have not needed in decades (Trying to tell most Americans that
its wrong to segregate people by race, for example), and they tune out. That is
not to say you can't have a character explain the evils of something, but it
must move the story forward. Often such a balancing act is difficult, it
seems.
42 is a movie that
accomplishes this balancing act. The movie is about Jackie Robinson's first
season in the white-dominated professional baseball league. The movie opens
with the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), telling
his two assistants that he is going to integrate professional baseball. When
asked why he points out that there are lots of blacks in Brooklyn who will pay
to see a Dodgers game "Dollars aren't black and white. They're
green." (Hint: This ain't the real reason). So he chooses the
talented young baseball player in the Negro Leagues, Jackie Robinson. When they
first meet, Rickey tells him that if he wants to play he's going to have to be
able to take the incredible amount of abuse he will receive stoically, saying
"I want a player who's got the goes not to fight
back."
And
so he joins the Montreal Monarchs, which is where many Dodgers players are
recruited from. And the abuse starts quickly on account of them training in
segregationist Florida. When he is signed with the Dodgers, even more comes his
way. A group of players even sign a petition against letting him join. Most of
them are talked down by the manager Durocher, played here by Christopher Meloni
in a great scene where he points out that Robinson is not the last and there
are whole bunch of black players who not only have the talent to play but also,
as he puts it "the drive" and if the white players want to keep their
jobs they are going to have to be good enough not to lose their jobs. This is
another sign of the movie's good writing, a lesser writer would have had Meloni
give a long speech about the evils of racism. Here, he plays to their
self-interest.
So,
he's in the Dodgers and the rest of the movie is about how the other players,
often reluctantly, not only become more comfortable with having a black player
on their team but, inspired by his spirit even at times standing up for him in
front of racist managers such as the Phillies' Ben Chapmen (Alan Tudyk of Firefly and
the British Death at a Funeral) or angry whites in the stands. Not
all the players do so, but when it happens, it nearly always made me want to
cheer.
As
you can tell, there is some heavy-handedness, certainly, but given that it is
dealing with the racism in early 20th Century America, some heavy-handedness is
probably necessary. But that heavy-handedness never devolves into a sermon
at the audience. The farthest it goes is when they are playing in Cincinnati
and it features a boy watching his father shout racial epithets before slowly
joining in. In fact, much of the heavy-handedness that occurs serves to tell us
the that Robinson faced and how he not only overcame those obstacles but,
and I know you've heard this 1,000 times but it bears repeating, changed the
game of baseball. Even the scene with the boy serves this purpose, but you'll
have to see the movie to know how.
There
is also the revelation from Branch Rickey about his true motivations
for letting him play, which could have become a heavy-handed speech about the
evils of racism instead serve to remind the racism that existed back then as
well as, and this is why it works, reveal something about who Branch Rickey is
and why he is doing this.
So,
all in all, a good movie. Now that is not to say it is without its flaws.
The ending is a bit anti-climactic, perhaps a price of staying to close to
history. There are also times the scenes between Robinson and his wife, though they
serve to make him more likable, do come seem to stop the story.
So
I give it between 3 1/2 stars and 4 stars. Not sure if it ranks as a great
movie but its certainly a good one and worth the price of admission.
Note:
There is a small treat for fans of the long-running TV show Scrubs where
John C. McGinley, the abrasive Dr. Cox on the show, plays the ever calm
sportscaster Red Barber.
