"Plaaaay Ballllll!" Yes, the Boys of Summer are at it again and this time, I learned a LOT about where American baseball has been and the fundamental changes that have happened in my lifetime. Even though we already know how it ends, thanks to a terrific PG-13 script by Brian Helgeland (Oscar for "L.A. Confidential") this insight into the Great American Pastime is an excellent reminder of how far we have come, thanks to courageous trail blazers like Jackie Robinson, who integrated professional baseball in 1945 at the instigation of Branch Rickey, a baseball executive who loved the game.We cringe at the language used to attack our hero, we are saddened by the refusal of hotels and restaurants to serve a team that includes a black man, we are enraged by the racist heckling that takes place and we cheer when we see a man quietly rise above the rancor and "just play ball."
Here is a sample of the (huge) wonderful cast:
* Chatwick Boseman ("The Express" and lots of TV) is heroic as the legendary Jackie Robinson, whose Brooklyn Dodgers uniform boasts a "42" on the back. Despite Jim Crow laws, blatant racism and a potential lynch mob, he staunchly maintains, "I'm just here to play baseball."
* Nicole Beharie ("Shame") is Robinson's gentle wife, Rachel, who is the calm at the center of his storm. The Robinsons are from Pasadena, so neither of them had ever encountered segregation; they had only read about it.
* Harrison Ford ("Ender's Game" SOON!) is marvelous as Branch Rickey, the man who first brings a black man (Robinson) into Big League Baseball. He pulls no punches when he lays out what is in store for Robinson; he gives excellent advice. He explains that "God is a Methodist."
* Christopher Meloni ("True Blood") as Dodger coach Leo Durocher, Jackie Robinson's first defender on the team. He blasts the rebellious Dodger teammates who threaten to boycott until Robinson is fired: "If Robinson can help us win, then he's gonna play on this ball club."
* Alan Tudek ("Firefly" and LOTS of TV) as Ben Chapman, the racist Philadelphia coach whose vile heckling of Robinson finally turns the tide. The crowd can't help but sympathize with his victim.
* Lucas Black ("Seven Days in Utopia") playing Southerner Pee Wee Reese, another legend who had to come to grips with his own prejudice. Eventually he tells Robinson, "Maybe tomorrow we'll all wear a 42 on our uniforms, that way nobody will be able to tell us apart." (This has become an annual event.)
* Hamish Linklater ("Lola Versus") is Ralph Branca, the teammate who tries to invite Robinson to shower with the team. The more awkward he becomes, the funnier the scene becomes.
The screening audience was entertained, thrilled and inspired, our applause was richly deserved, and we all went home much smarter than when we came in. Be sure to stay for the final credits because there are some interesting (and satisfying) postscripts.
Please take children to see what our tawdry past looked like not too long ago, or show them the DVD from Amazon when it becomes available. They will be shocked!
"Sports movies" are best when they're a metaphor for other areas of our lives. "Field of Dreams" isn't really about baseball, "Rocky" isn't really about boxing, and "Hoosiers" really isn't about basketball. What those movies speak to are other forces in our lives that hopefully bring out the best in us, and while "42" isn't metaphorical it speaks directly to our views of race and racism.
"42" takes place between 1946 and 1948 when Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) brought Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) to the Brooklyn Dodgers and integrated baseball. The plot is as simple as that, the story isn't. Robinson was virtually alone, Martin Luther King Jr was still a high school student, Rosa Parks hadn't yet refused to sit at the back of the bus (although Robinson had and was court-martialed for it in the military), those who believed in him were his wife Rachael (Nicole Beharie) and Rickey. Robinson didn't even have the backing of his teammates who started a petition refusing to play with Robinson, slowly Robinson won over their respect. The way Robinson won over their respect, besides being a great ballplayer was to smile while epithets and threats were hurled at him, to get back up after players on opposing teams purposefully injured him. Robinson is a man with a temper but he knows history is watching and whether the integration of baseball happens or not rests on how he acts, and in public he was a tower of strength and "42" is brave enough to show Robinson's private moment of doubt and wanting to strike back at his attackers.
The cast and acting of "42" is superb, Chadwick Boseman resembles Robinson so much the only thing better would have been Robinson playing himself. Boseman exudes Robinson's strength smiling in the face of those who don't want him in baseball while showing the pain that lies just under Robinson's surface. Ford's Branch Rickey is a hero apart from the characters of overt action Ford has played in the past and Ford summon's Rickey's unshakeable faith in the integration of baseball because of his sense of what is right and his religious views make Rickey a pillar against which the waves of racism wash against and try to erode but ultimately fail. It may be to early in the year but this may be a Oscar worthy performance for Ford. Nicole Beharie as Rachel Robinson is Jackie's pillar of strength, it's a clichéd role but it is no way clichéd or rote acting, Beharie conveys the tender support Rachel Robinson did for Jackie and as she still does carrying on his legacy. Christopher Meloni is great as Dodgers manager Leo Durocher and he brings the menace and ultimate authority that Durocher had as a manager, it's a shame history took Durocher out of the game so early in Robinson's story Meloni steals the screen in his scenes. As Durocher's replacement Max Gail plays Burt Shooten, the position and character are place holders in history and the movie, but it's kind of cool to see Max Gail in a film.
Today all sports and teams are integrated, all races participate in all sports, we don't even think of it as integration any more, it's just the fact that if you rise to a certain level of achievment you can play professional sports no matter your ethnic background or heritage. There are also reminders for us that "42" isn't dead history, throughout the movie we hear the rejoinder of "this isn't the America I know" echoes of which we've heard in our recent past. "42" even offers a choice, when the Dodgers play in Cincinnati we see a father and son in the stands, the father relating seeing his baseball hero Honus Wagner as a kid, a touching moment that has probably been repeated millions of times in the 100 year plus history of professional baseball. But when Jackie Robinson takes the field the father starts calling him "n-----" the son at first looks stunned at the change in his father, then following his father's example starts using the same epithets until his hero Pee-Wee Reese comes up to Robinson and puts his arm around him for all to see and the camera cuts back to the confused look on the kids face, he has a choice to make in life. That is why "42" is a special movie that reminds of us a time that wasn't so long ago (well within the confines of a life time) and how we got to where we are, it's a history to remember and not let the forces of ignorance and hate take us backwards.
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42, written and directed by Brian Helgeland, is based on the real-life story of Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson, the first African-American baseball player to play in the major leagues. Robinson's story is well known to many, but to anyone who isn't, 42 (Robinson's number when he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers) will serve to acquaint them with the man and his achievements against the backdrop of the times he lived through. The cast is excellent and give outstanding performances, particularly when recreating the feel of the times and the way it felt to watch Robinson play.The story begins in 1945, when Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey (a deftly turned performance by Harrison Ford) makes the decision that his team is going to be the first major league baseball team to recruit and field a black player. He takes his time, going over the various prospects with his staff, and finally settles on a short-stop currently playing for a black league team, the Kansas City Monarchs, Jackie Robinson (terrifically played by Chadwick Boseman). The film then follows Robinson's career, starting with his being signed to Rickey's minor-league Montreal Royals for the 1946 season, and then his move up to the big league Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
One of the best things about 42 is that it does show just how racially divided American was in the years following WWII and how openly hostile and acted upon the racism was in those days. This is absolutely vital to the film in order to show just how daring and risky Rickey's decision was, and how daunting the challenge was for Robinson to was to step up to the plate and face the hostility of not only the crowds but also that of his own teammates as well.
As I said, the cast is excellent and there are too many fine performances to list them all. Harrison Ford is visibly having a ball in his best role in years as the garrulous, cigar-chomping but never wavering in determination Branch Rickey. Christopher Meloni (best known from TV's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) delivers in spades as the larger-than-life Dodgers manager, Leo Durocher. And Lucas Black turns in a deft performance as Robinson's Dodgers teammate, baseball legend Pee Wee Reese. Alan Tudyk gets the thankless but important job of playing Ben Chapman, the Philadelphia Phillies' manager who openly race-baits Robinson during a game. And to his credit, Tudyk carries it off brilliantly, filling the screen with everything that so desperately needing changing in America at that time. On the other side, Andre Holland's African-American sportswriter Wendell Smith, who has to sit with his typewriter balanced on his knees in the bleachers because they don't allow blacks in the news booth, is there to remind Robinson in his soft-spoken but clear-eyed way that "This isn't just about you." And Nicole Beharie as Rachel Robinson is supportive grace personified as she gives Jackie a calm center to turn to amid the storm swirling all about him.
But it is above all Chadwick Boseman's masterful portrayal of Robinson himself that carries the film, from the way in which he brings out the man behind the legend to the way in which he vividly recreates the way Robinson played the game. The scenes where Robinson repeatedly gets the best of one pitcher after another with his visually taunting, hands-twitching stealing of bases are almost worth the price of admission just by themselves.
My only complaint is in regard to Helgeland's direction and script. While there are many scenes and moments in 42 that are beautifully rendered, as a film it feels somewhat choppy, moving in a paint-by-numbers fashion to fill in one episode after the other but with no real smoothness or flow to it. And too often Helgeland seems to lack confidence in the story, choosing to gild the lily with scenes that are decidedly ham-handed in contrast to the moments of sheer grace that Robinson's story has in abundance. (I swear, some scenes are so heavy-handed one almost expects Keenan Ivory Wayans to suddenly appear on-screen shouting "Message!" the way he did in the over-the-top spoof Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood). That said however, please take all this with a grain of salt. 42 _is_ a good film. It might even be a very good film. But given the truly history-making nature of the story, and the remarkable performances by the highly talented cast, it could have been a _great_ film. I know that Helgeland has done excellent work as a screenwriter in the past, from 1998's L.A. Confidential for which he won an Academy Award to 2003's Mystic River for which he was nominated, with A Knight's Tale and Payback, which he also directed, in between. But his record since then has been decidedly spotty, with his only directing credit being the 2003 box-office bomb The Order and writing credits for less than stellar films like Man On Fire, the 2009 remake of The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, 2010's Robin Hood and Green Zone. While 42 will hopefully do better than any of those, it unfortunately only seems to continue Helgeland's slump as a writer and/or director.
Highly recommended to anyone wanting to know more about a critical era in major league sports and about the men who changed it forever.
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There's been no shortage of sports dramas in Hollywood, which typically releases a feel-good sports flick every year or so, and we as movie-goers love to see an uplifting and inspirational story that pertains to the world of sports. However, over the course of history, there may be no story of greater importance than that of Jackie Robinson, the lone man who broke through Major League Baseball's color barrier and changed the sport, as well as our nation, forever.42 tells the story of these amazing figures and the trials they endured to make Jackie Robinson the first African-American player in the game. In the film, the legendary athlete is played by newcomer Chadwick Boseman who does a terrific job given the weight and importance of the man he's portraying, and whose performance is earnest and inspirational. Of course, Robinson's journey couldn't have happened without Branch Rickey, the GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers who risked everything to take a stand against prejudice. That man is played by Harrison Ford, who plays the part fantastically. The pair have some great on-screen moments and really add to the film's authenticity. All-in-all it's a very well-rounded cast with some strong supporting roles, including John C. McGinley as Red Barber and Lucas Black as Pee Wee Reese.
This film is a fantastic biopic of one of sports's most important figures. The performances are great and there's some really good baseball action as well. The film also contains more humor than I would have expected, most of which comes from Robinson's Dodger teammates. Do yourself a favor and see 42. It's a respectful and engaging sports film that will leave you feeling up-lifted and inspired.
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"Break an unwritten law and you will be an out cast."Facing an uphill battle Branch Ricky (Harrison Ford) finds the right African-American ballplayer to break the color barrier in baseball. Rickey's reasons are diverse being both altruistic, having a sense of justice, old guilty feelings, and the desire to win and make money. Chadwick Boseman portrays the Jackie Robinson of legend, an overly talented, silent, and classy individual. While the film is about him, it shows things that go on behind the scenes.
The film starts with a quick background and goes into Jackie's minor league trials and tribulations on and off the field. Ricky supported Robinson off the field anyway he could, but on the field Jackie was alone. It shows the break through of his teammates to overcome the prejudicial urges they grew up with. Minds winning over emotions to do what was right.
Don't get me wrong, it shows whites behaving badly and makes Philadelphia look bad. It gives us a glimpse of the ugly side of baseball, one we really don't want to see. In spite of the heavy and historical use of the N-word, it is a film that makes audiences stand up and applaud.
What the film doesn't tell you about is all the children that were named Jack or Jackie because of this man.
Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Frequent racial slurs.
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