42 is a film about breaking barriers that doesn’t break many rules itself.
Before Hank Aaron, Willie Mays or any other great black ballplayers helped elevate the game of baseball to where it stands today, there was Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ valorous No. 42.
He broke major league baseball’s color barrier in 1947 and was met with widespread abuse, not only from the game’s racist fans, but also from many involved in the league at the time, including coaches, umpires and even his own teammates. Nonetheless, Robinson courageously prevailed and had a very successful career before being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
42, the latest film from writer/director Brian Helgeland (Robin Hood), tells the story of the beginning of Robinson’s career. While it may not reinvent the genre of feel-good sports movies, the legend of Robinson is enough to warrant a watch.
The movie’s bright spots include strong performances from Chadwick Boseman (The Kill Hole) as Robinson, and Harrison Ford, (Cowboys & Aliens) who acts as Dodgers’ executive Branch Rickey. Additionally, the plot stays true to itself and character development exists even if it isn’t especially dynamic or memorable.
42 picks up after the 1946 season with the cigar-wielding Rickey determined to improve his squad. Intent on winning, he decides to break the unwritten law that Major League Baseball was a white man’s game. After tossing around a number of Negro League prospects, Rickey lands on Robinson.
Then, 42 takes a dramatic turn for the boring as it moves through the 1947 season.
After Robinson agrees to be signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in an overwrought scene in Rickey’s office, the plot begins to feel like a template taken from Billy Crystal’s 2001 HBO movie, 61*, which chronicled Roger Maris’ breaking of the single-season home run record.
The plot progression is strikingly similar. Not only do both flicks paint their respective main character as a misunderstood outcast who has to slowly earn his spot on a new team, but both use the players’ wives as the essential supporting structure for the men through their tribulations in comparable ways. At times, it even feels as if Helgeland simply changed the names in Crystal’s script.
This is not to say, though, that the movie has nothing to offer. Lesser-known facets of Robinson’s story — such as that he was not expected to play on the Dodgers at the start of the 1947 season or that he played first base for all of that year — will appeal to the casual sports fan.
Furthermore, Leo Durocher’s (Christopher Meloni, Awful Nice) presence as the first manager of the Dodgers’ 1947 season is spot-on. He is essential for comic relief in the early goings and, in a dramatic scene in which he commands his team to end their blatant racism toward Robinson, shines through as one of the most effective characters in 42. If anything, he is under utilized.
The highlight of the movie comes during a game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies in which Phillies manager Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk, Wreck-It Ralph) incessantly heckles Robinson.
He spits abundant racial slurs at Robinson as he steps up to bat. Chapman eventually gets under his skin, and after failing to land a hit in a second at-bat, Robinson escapes to the dugout tunnel where he smashes his bat against the cinder block wall.
As splinters of wood fly around the tunnel, Robinson howls, and for a brief moment the audience understands the man’s anguish. Once the bat is obliterated, Rickey, who has left his seat in the stands, approaches Robinson in the tunnel. The two talk and connect with each other, and Rickey embraces the sobbing Robinson.
With the number 42 brazenly facing the camera before the stairs that lead to the field, it all feels achingly human. In a moment of cinematic clarity, the weight of the story is felt at once.
Although 42 doesn’t offer much innovation on repetitive construction of heroic sports movies, it does the Jackie Robinson story justice and casts light on overlooked or forgotten aspects of his tale. The film is now the most accessible way for a young generation to begin to understand the danger of ignorant prejudice.
Even if baseball is not as relevant today as it was in the mid-20th century, the story remains powerful. And it deserves not only to be told, but to be seen.
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