An Important History Lesson

Rating: 9/10 (18 April 2013)

The historical sports drama, 42, transports the viewer back in time to a different America: An America where discrimination is an accepted fact of life; an America where blacks and whites in the South are forced to use separate bathrooms; an America where a baseball manager could be suspended for sleeping with a Hollywood starlet; an America where 96 wins isn't enough to get a team into the MLB postseason (!). It's the age of Jackie Robinson – the man who changed America's Pastime and changed American attitudes about race.
Harrison Ford plays Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers' General Manager who made the bold decision to bring an African American into the Major Leagues in 1947. Ford is tremendous. It's a rare treat to watch one of Hollywood's most famous leading men disappear into a character. At first, it seems odd to see Ford playing an old curmudgeon. But then one comes to the astonishing realization that Ford (at age 70) is actually a few years older than Rickey was when he brought Robinson to Brooklyn. In the movie, Rickey professes that his motives are financial – the Dodgers have lots of African American fans that would pay to see Robinson play. He claims the only color he cares about is green. Ford's commanding and ultimately moving portrayal, however, hints at more decent and high-minded desires driving Rickey's decision. The Academy might as well start engraving Ford's name onto the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. This is his finest performance since The Mosquito Coast.
Little-known actor Chadwick Boseman brings all the necessary elements to the role of Robinson. He looks like a ballplayer and is totally convincing in the baseball scenes. But he also effectively conveys the emotional turmoil inside a man forced to endure racially charged taunts and other various indignities due to the color of his skin. He shows the grace and class with which Robinson handled the onslaught. It took true courage to not fight back. It showed true character to turn the other cheek. One wonders what would have happened had Robinson not taken the high road – or hadn't been such a remarkable ballplayer. Jackie Robinson's success was an important step toward racial equality in the U.S. How much slower would progress have been if he hadn't come along? The rest of the cast consists mainly of TV actors, most notably Christopher Meloni as Leo Durocher, the fiery manager who quashes his players' objections to Robinson's inclusion on the team. The actors mostly look like athletes (1940s athletes anyway) and baseball action has a more realistic look and feel than most baseball films. Computer graphics are also effectively used to recreate long-since-demolished ballparks like Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds in exact detail.
The script by writer/director Brian Helgeland is straightforward, but unlike most sports movies, there's no "big game" at the end. Real life provided no such drama (the 1947 Dodgers lost the Fall Classic to the Yankees). So, Helgeland manufactures a climax by staging a fourth inning at-bat in a mid-September game as if it's the seventh game of the World Series. It's a bit of a cheat, but it works.
Helgeland avoids sanitizing the racial vitriol hurled at Robinson. He plainly shows the ignorance and prejudice that was openly expressed – most infamously by Phillies' manager Ben Chapman. (Philadelphia fans won't find much to be proud of in the movie. Going in, I knew the ugly part the City of Brotherly Love played in Robinson's story, but that doesn't make it any easier to watch. The Phillies were the last National League team to integrate – this movie shows why that was likely the case.) At the same time, the filmmakers present a movie that most families will still find acceptable for young fans that don't know Robinson's story or his significance in American history. You hear lots of n-words, but not nearly as many as your average Tarantino film. And each character that uses them is sternly chastised on screen. (Aside from those scattered slurs, there isn't much that most parents would find objectionable.)