42
One thing that writer/director Brian Helgeland does very well in “42,” his biopic about Jackie Robinson, is play straight to the harsh realities Robinson no doubt faced when he became the first African-American to play Major League Baseball. There’s some pretty rough racial language in this film; I’m actually kind of surprised he got away with a PG-13 rating. (I’m guessing the “true story” part played a role in it.)
That said, “42” is, very much, a Hollywood biopic, sanded to a smooth surface, and inspirational in story, as Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford, at his gruff best) does the unthinkable in 1940s America, and decides to break the color barrier by recruiting Robinson (played by Chadwick Boseman in a star-making performance) from the Negro League. Naturally, this is met with resistance, but as they say, the rest is history.
I don’t know enough about the true story of Robinson’s life to know just how Hollywood cliche the film is, but it did keep me entertained, and did make me care about the events on-screen, even if it did follow a very standard play book for underdog sports tales. In the end, that’s enough for me.
