Adequate, average, easy & ideal for a quiet Sunday afternoon.

Rating: 6/10 (15 October 2013)

It's not a prerequisite to enjoy and understand baseball to appreciate 42, but it probably helps.
The latest offering from writer/director Brian Helgeland, the scribe behind Green Zone and the man in the chair for A Knight's Tale, has a smattering of sufficient ingredients to guarantee it becomes a reasonably popular, moderate hit without being striking enough to make it a spectacular blockbuster. Dealing with racism and class prejudice, a good-triumphs-over-evil element and the feel-good factor of an underdog story, 42 will satisfy most viewers and adequately fill a couple of hours without knocking your day out of kilter.
42 is based on the true story of Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) who, in 1946, became the first African American to play major league baseball when he was recruited by club president and GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), and wore, unsurprisingly, the number 42 shirt. It was a remarkable moment in sporting history, a great day for humanity and requires little imagination to see the filmic potential. In terms of cinematic 'beating the odds' films, it ranks above last year's Red Tails, but it doesn't quite have the impact of, say, The Power of One and certainly falls short of the emotional tugging that The Blind Side enjoyed.
But sometimes an 'easy', feel-good tale of moral victories and minor tension is exactly what is required and 42 works perfectly if you're not hoping for Oscar bait.
Central to the film is Boseman, a TV actor (Persons Unknown, Lincoln Heights) who is finding some success on the big screen (Ivan Reitman's Draft Day, with Kevin Costner, and James Brown biopic, Get On Up, are both in post-production). He gives a temperate performance as the feisty sportsman who refuses to be beaten by prejudice but must sit out the fisticuff fights to win the emotional, political war. Boseman has the charisma to carry the film but it is the supporting characters who add depth to 42.
Harrison Ford has entered a new chapter of his career with Rickey. Make-up and padding help, but Ford is in full flow as a baggy, gruff business man with a good heart and a moralistic view bound tightly with his need to make his business (the Dodgers) turn a profit. There is something of Albert Finney in his performance and his Rickey could be a close cousin of Erin Brockovich's Ed Masry. On the basis of this, Ford may just become this generation's Jason Robards. There's no great surprise in his performance but an evolution of the character he has played variations of for much of his career. It's a solid, fun performance that avoids becoming irascible in a Clint Eastwood way.
Yes, 42 is woolly at times and it lacks either impact or surprise, but it avoids becoming twee and is a thoroughly enjoyable film. And sometimes that's all you need on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
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