Reviews of Movies, TV shows & metro Detroit Restaurants

Short movie & TV show reviews and metro Detroit restaurant reviews

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Movie Review: "42" (2013)


42 (written & directed by Brian Helgeland and starring Chadwick Boseman & Harrison Ford) is about the American sports legend Jackie Robinson and how he broke the baseball color barrier.

Robinson (played by Boseman) is a young, talented, black baseball player playing in the Negro league for the Kansas City Monarchs after serving in the Army during WWII. While playing for the Monarchs, Robinson is offered a contract to play with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the owner of the Dodgers, Branch Rickey (played by Ford), scoured the Negro leagues looking to find a black player to add to his team. Robinson starts the 1946 season playing for the Montreal Royals after working with the Dodgers during spring training. He then gets called up to play for the Dodgers in 1947 and the rest is history.

Of course, this journey is not easy as Robinson has a significant amount of racism to deal with opposing teams and even amongst his Dodgers teammates as many do not want to play with him. But others like Pee Wee Reese (played by Lucas Black) show Jackie strong support as he struggles to fit into this all-white league. However, he never loses the support of Rickey and the rest of the Dodgers organization which ultimately helps him in this difficult struggle. Plus his skills as a baseball player help him to win his teammates over as well.

42 is a well-made, well-acted movie that does a good job of telling Robinson's story accurately & respectfully. Robinson's story is very inspiring and this movie portrays this very well. Ford really stood out playing Rickey with the right amount of shrewdness, toughness yet good-heartedness Rickey possessed.

I liked 42...7.5/10 stars

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