42 (2013)
Directed by Brian
Helgeland
Warner Brothers, 128
minutes, PG-13 (racist language)
* *
Jackie Robinson (1919-72) was a true American hero whose
reintegration of Major League Baseball (MLB) was a landmark moment in the
struggle for African-American civil rights. To put his achievement in context,
Robinson defied prevailing segregation patterns in 1947, a full seven years
before the Brown v. the Board of
Education decision declared segregated public education unconstitutional,
eight years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a Montgomery,
Alabama bus, and seventeen years before the 1964 Civil Rights Act dismantled
legal Jim Crow systems. In 1997, MLB retired Jackie Robinson’s jersey number 42
and, when Mariano Rivera retires after the 2013 season, no more MLB players
will wear it. Does Jackie Robinson deserve a movie? You bet, but he deserves a better
one than 42.
42 isn’t horrible–it’s
Hollywood. That, of course, is often just a step or two above horrible, and
seldom reaches higher than the lowest common denominator. Moreover, with the
exception of boxing, few American sports are very convincing on the screen. In
some respect, nearly all baseball films are a variant of The Natural, which is to say they are uniformed representations of
what the late Joseph Campbell called “the hero’s journey.” In that cycle, an
unlikely person–a black man in this case–receives a call to adventure, tries to
refuse, is convinced not to by a mentor (Brooklyn Dodgers’ General Manager
Branch Rickey), and then crosses the “threshold” from the “ordinary” to the
“special” world. The hero is tested, bribed, and threatened before he undergoes
a symbolic rebirth and embraces his special mission. In the end, he re-crosses
the threshold and returns to the ordinary realm.
That’s the story arc in 42,
though the bulk of the film centers on Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) relationship
with Rickey (Harrison Ford), and how Jackie slowly wins the respect of
skeptical and (in some cases) racist teammates during the 1947 MLB season.
Because it’s Hollywood, numerous factual liberties are taken in the script (penned
by director Helgeland). Boston Globe sportswriter
Bob Ryan recently cataloged some of the film’s inaccuracies. These could be
forgiven, if they had made the film more dramatic and enhanced our appreciation
for Robinson. Alas, the film has a lightweight “Gee whiz!” feel, as if
Robinson’s achievement was little more than a collective national task necessary
to enhance American greatness. Nonsense! Robinson didn’t tread a teleological
path; he thumbed his nose at convention and spat in the face of racism. We see
the enormity of his accomplishment just once in the film–a scene in which
Robinson is being brutally hectored by Phillies manager Ben Chapman (Alan
Tudyk). There is name calling elsewhere and allusions of danger, but most of
the film is so elegiac it could have been a joint project between Ron Howard
and Ken Burns. Add Mark Isham’s cloying soundtrack, Nicole Beharie’s syrupy, puppy-dog
eyed take on Rachel Robinson, and Dodger teammates undergoing racial conversion
like so many Baptists at a river wash-me-down, and watching 42 is frequently like downing a bowl of
Trix with extra sugar.
Luckily, a few good performances save 42 from being a total disaster. Boseman is excellent as Robinson
and strikes the right balance between gritty determination, smoldering anger,
and inner vulnerability. The word “irascible” is often applied to Rickey and
Harrison Ford does a credible job at being a gravely voiced, obstinate
moralizer, even if he is a tad too folksy at times. Andre Holland does a fine
turn as black sportswriter Wendell Phillips, the man who was Jackie’s road
partner during his 1947 trial by fire. A lot of the minor characters are
decent, though many of them seem to have been chosen because they look vaguely like someone more famous:
Christopher Meloni’s Leo Durocher evokes John Sayles, Beharie looks like
Meaghan Good, Holland is reminiscent of a younger Spike Lee, and Tudyk looks
like a red-headed less beefy version of Curt Schilling.
The movie stops after 1947, another aspect of Helgeland’s
pat directorial and storytelling style. Robinson didn’t really integrate MLB;
black players competed until 1889. Nor was integration a done deal after 1947;
the Boston Red Sox didn’t integrate until 1959, three years after Jackie retired. For the record, don’t think of
Jackie Robinson as a consistent champion of civil rights either; he was a
conservative Nixon Republican when he died of a heart attack in 1972. None of
this diminishes the heroism of Robinson’s deeds as a racial pioneer. It’s a
great story-–a much better one than Helgeland gives us. --Rob Weir
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