Pitchforks: 2/5
Rated: PG-13
Released: April 12, 2013
With both “Lincoln” and “Django: Unchained” released this year, the movie “42” continues this exploration through America's racist past by converting the tale of baseball legend Jackie Robinson into a two-hour film.
Unlike some sports movies, “42” has an immediate advantage. Its protagonist as a monumental figure appeals beyond the sports crowd.
Robinson influenced the human rights movement through baseball. A movie meant to represent such a profound legacy should be more than just the average sports movie.
It is not.
The opening scene alone forecasts the movie’s problems. Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey (played by Harrison Ford) sits in his office puffing a cigar under the spotlight. In a broken Southern accent, he decides that he himself will find a “Negro” baseball player to play in the major leagues.
“I don’t know who he is, or where he is, but he’s coming,” Rickey says.
By the movie’s finale, it becomes questionable if Rickey bothered to learn anything about his selected hero.
The opening scene presents Rickey as the instigator — the doer — behind the entire Jackie Robinson legacy, crafting Rickey out to be an “white savior” figure for the whole film. Calling Rickey a white savior might sound premature based on this scene alone. To Rickey’s credit, it takes courage to take such a daring leap against cultural norms by signing the first black baseball player in the major leagues.
Unfortunately, Rickey dominates the movie and its baseball star as well. The character Jackie Robinson is reduced to a mere pawn in Rickey’s personal chess game.
Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) is a passive character. We first see him in the midst of his season in what was termed the “Negro League,” so any background information on Robinson must be loosely gathered from slight snippets dropped from various characters. We hear one brief line about Robinson serving in the armed forces, and we hear another quip about his success in four sports in school.
This misty shroud surrounding Robinson follows him through to the film’s conclusion. Virtually no psychological insights can be found apart from a fragment in which he mumbles something about his father and not liking to rely upon other people. Robinson is continually told that the road will be hard, that racism will rattle his very bones, yet all too often he remains mute, indecipherable and even blasé.
“I don’t think it matters what I believe, only what I do,” he says in one scene.
Perhaps this is why nearly every scene tinged with even the slightest hint of danger features Rickey in his all-powerful might protecting Robinson. Rickey prevents team manager Leo Durocher (Christopher Meloni) from showing any racism toward Robinson in Spring training.
In one scene, Rickey orders a sleeping Robinson to leave a town — just in time before a white mob gathers in the city’s center. At every corner, Rickey is there, waiting stubbornly to prevent Robinson from revealing himself to the audience as a three-dimensional character.
We finally get a glimpse into Robinson’s frustration during an admittedly cringe-worthy game with Phillies manager Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk) streaming expletives at Robinson on the baseball field.
Robinson storms into a secluded hallway and smashes his bat against the wall before crumpling to his knees and weeping. At this precise moment we prepare to understand Robinson’s personal driving forces, but who should hobble down the stairs at the most opportune time but Rickey? He picks Robinson up, tells him to go win the game, etc.
Rickey’s dominance proves alarming as the film progresses. We are told his motives (something amounting to a bad conscience), but his power clearly reduces Robinson.
Robinson is a vessel for the other characters in the film. He lacks any depth. Even his status as a vessel disappoints, for all the other characters are uninteresting and undeveloped as well. His wife Rachel (Nicole Beharie) amounts to little more than a mindless supporter with a pretty face, his personal reporter Wendell Smith (Andre Hollard) is as thin as a film of ice, and Robinson’s teammates could be adequately substituted with motion-sensing mannequins, no harm done.
OK, not everybody who sees “42” will be going for a study in character development or historical progress of ideas. How does its raw entertainment value stack up?
To the film’s credit, the pacing works nicely. Scenes are neither too long nor too short, and the movie as a whole at least provides a solid baseball tale.
However, there are stylistic flairs that, depending upon preference, harm the film’s quality. Slow-motion shots in sports films already bring skepticism; in “42” slow-motion footage arguably creates the cheesiest, most overdone home run jog in movie history — complete with a swelling orchestra, booming brass and fingers pointed to the sky ... and beaming crowd members.
Dramatic music accompanies most “quotable” speeches, such as slow piano trills and gentle strings. After enough time, the movie begins to feel cheapened by its direct attempt to guide the audience through emotion. The movie lacks a spark to make it stand out from any other sports movie, but at least it is watchable.
A film that reduces Jackie Robinson’s story to just another overdone sports film should be reserved for only die-hard baseball fans. Others may find that reading his Wikipedia page will do more to offer a complete, comprehensive portrait of this fine figure than will the movie “42.”
Reach the reporter at jconigli@asu.edu
