This beats Django in the first inning.

Rating: Null/10 (13 April 2013)

As a 57 year-old white guy I rarely attend movies appealing to African-Americans. Hell, many of them aren't appealing to me since the little woman likes those danged RomComs and such. If I have to go to one more movie in which some young white dude looks into his woman's eyes and says some manure like "you complete me," I will jump in front a truck over at the Lowe's. The last movie I went to with a significant number of African-Americans was Django Unchained.
DU is a dreadful movie. It has its parts and I am sure that plenty of fine human beings liked this movie, but in reality Jamie Fox did a lousy job and the movie was in insult to African-Americans. It is a greater insult to Italian-Americans since Quentin Tarrantino makes progressively worse movies each time.
Which leads us to 42. This is a feel-good baseball movie with humor and drama. We go in knowing that the good guys win in the end. The trip to the happy ending was bad and as much as the movie tried, it did not come close to showing just how badly Jackie was treated.
My perspective of this is different than I suggest the perspective of a man my age who happens to be African-American. The movie does not disappoint. Jackie is played nobly. Branch Richie is played nobly. The movie is worth the price of admission.
I came of age during the tumultuous days of desegregation. I came from a military family and as such didn't even know what segregation was until we moved to the South. I've never really gotten my brain around it. The movie reminds us just how deep-seated the hatred of desegregation was not just in the South but also in the North.
In the end, everyone, black and white, applauded the movie. It was good strong applause that is rarely heard in theaters these days. And 42 deserved every bit of it.