42: A Review

Itching for a great new baseball movie for some time now (Trouble with the Curve certainly didn't do it for me), I was very excited to see 42 last week.  There's no point in providing the plot synopsis for the film: If you don't know Jackie Robinson's story you must have been living underneath a rock for the past 65 years, and that's what makes 42 such a bold and daunting project.  As spectacular as Robinson's tale is, virtually every American knows it by heart, putting pressure on this movie to add a new dimension or layer to one of sports history's greatest true stories.  While 42 did a nice job of covering Robinson's journey from Negro Leaguer to Hall of Famer, it failed to show me a side of the story that I hadn't already heard before.

On one hand, this can be seen as a good thing.  Unlike some other sports movies that over-dramatize the "facts" in order to create a more entertaining story, 42 looked pretty realistic.  Other than Harrison Ford's portrayal of Dodgers owner Branch Rickey (which at times was a bit over-the-top), I thought most of the other characters felt true to life.  On the other hand, however, the film definitely lacked the drama associated with other Rocky-esque sports films that I've come to know and love.  At times 42 screened more like an educational documentary than it does a sports movie, and while there's nothing wrong with that it's worth noting before you enter the theater and expect to be fired up by a movie that feels like Miracle.

We all know that, over time, Jackie Robinson was able to win over the majority of his racist critics and cement himself as one of the greatest and most beloved players in MLB history.  I'm not exactly sure how that transition was made, and 42 didn't really do much to explain it.  If the movie is correct, Robinson played hard enough to pretty easily and rapidly convince his teammates to abandon their deep-rooted racist beliefs and rally behind him.  The movie suggests that even opposing players and managers were quickly and naturally won over by Robinson's athleticism, professionalism and kindheartedness.  While I find the fact that the transition was so smooth hard to believe, it's better than having the film build to some super-cheesy, unrealistic climax. 

Overall, I give 42 a decent but unspectacular rating.  While I certainly enjoyed the film and recommend it to any baseball fan, it didn't truly win me over.  This might be another example of "the grass is always greener," where I'm happy that the movie was true to itself but simultaneously left wanting something a bit more exciting and made for Hollywood.  No matter how I look at it, though, I'm glad I spent the time and money seeing 42, and suggest you all do the same.