An inside-the-park home run for a true blue American hero.

Rating: 8/10 (14 April 2013)

42 (2013) *** Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Nicole Beharie, Christopher Meloni, Ryan Merriman, Lucas Black, Andre Holland, Alan Tudyk, Hamish Linklater, T.R. Knight, John C. McGinley, Toby Huss, Max Gail, James Pickens Jr., Brett Cullen, Jesse Luken. Ambitious yet straight-forward biopic about Jackie Robinson, the first black athlete to break the color- barrier in Major League Baseball, whose introduction to the Brooklyn Dodgers becomes more a journey of identity than skill and a study of racism in America in spite of them. Boseman is uncanny as Robinson who manages to balance grace and dignity with unchanneled anger while making the ranks of history with divine intervention from the team owner Branch Rickey (Ford in his best performance in years, while a tad hammy and chomping at the bit, generally appreciated for being the film's unspoken father figure) and the love of his life (beguiling Beharie). Filmmaker Brian Helgeland - who also penned the script - acquits himself by covering all the bases (particularly how even Robinson's own teammates' reluctance and ignorance speaks volumes) yet ham-strings in what could have been a bigger film (the movie only recounts his rookie year; important yes but so much more could've been explored). Still an inside-the-park home run for a true blue American hero.