In Review: "42"

Why do we watch baseball movies? The same reason why we sit in front of the TV for hours watching a team play a million miles away from our couches. The same reason why we sit in the stands and get rained on, sunburned, and wind whipped. We want to watch our favorite team play. We love the game of baseball.

“42” was lacking that key factor-the act of playing baseball. We never got to sit and watch a game all the way through, from pitch to pitch, from hit to hit. We didn’t even get to watch the Dodgers play the world series.

Great baseball movies like “Field of Dreams” (1989) and “A League of Their Own” (1992) realize that baseball is at the heart of every story. And although you may have ghosts roaming the fields or women swinging in short skirts, they are always playing the game. They were just there to play baseball.

That line was used throughout “42”, but I don’t think that is what this film was all about. I don’t condemn this film for not letting me watch the great Jackie Robinson play, but I do wish they would have let me.

Automatically this film reminded me of “Batman Begins” (2005). Jackie Robinson is a hero of the ages, like a superhero in those days. He did the impossible not because he had to but because he wanted to. But Batman did not become Batman overnight. He had years of training and someone always there to catch him when he fell. “Why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up again.”

What we tend to forget about the real world’s greatest heroes like Martin Luther King and Ghandi and Mother Theresa, is that they didn’t become who they are known to be overnight. And they did not get their strength from a falling meteor.

This film shows us the people behind the hero- his wife Rachel Robinson, his fellow players, the man who signed him to the Dodgers Branch Rickey, and his driver/friend/supporter Wendell Smith. These people suffered just as much as Robinson did, on and off the field. Robinson could not fight the color battle alone.

At the end of the film, as in every biopic, they show the characters and what happened to them after the film story ends. When they shows the characters of this film, I couldn’t have told you who they were without them flashing up the names of each player. There were too many characters to focus on and not enough time spent using them. Much more time spent showing slow-mo walk around the bases.

The pace was agonizingly slow. Two hours worth of sliding around the real issues and covering the truth with witty one liners from Harrison Ford. Not even when they were playing a game was there any action on the field. There were a few times that I felt like I was actually at a game, rooting for someone to shut that coach up. But not enough for me that stop checking my watch, wondering when they would get to the good stuff.

The Plot

I’m not even going to tell you because you really shouldn’t be thinking of seeing this movie if you don’t know who Jackie Robinson is. It goes from when he goes to the Montreal Royals and then when he is traded to the Brooklyn Dodgers, up until the world series in 1955. 

The Cast

Everyone is in this movie. Literally, everyone. It may have been a way to distract the audience from noticing the lack of action. You got a little butterflies in the stomach every time you recognized someone new. Not to say that the acting was bad. I would definitely not say that. Harrison Ford was delightful as the surly Branch Rickey. This is Chadwick Boseman’s first big role and he was able to bring all of the heart and stamina required for the title role.  The rest of the all star cast includes Christopher Meloni (“Runaway Bride” 1999), Ryan Merriman (“Pretty Little Liars”), Alan Tydk (“A Knight’s Tale”), John C. McGinley ("Scrubs"), Hamish Linklater "The New Adventures of Old Christine"), Toby Huss ("King of the Hill"), T.R. Knight ("Grey's Anatomy"), and James Pickens Jr. ("Grey's Anatomy"). It's like an easter egg hunt... with no chocolate inside. (DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!!)

The Message- Why I didn't like it

 In the last year I have noticed a fear of discrimination. When “Django Unchained” (2012) premiered, the press was in an uproar about the repetitive use of “the N word”. As Tarintino explained, this is history, not fantasy. The same goes for this film. I can imagine the director, Brian Helgeland, being afraid of offending people by using “harsh language”. But the truth is, what is so shocking is that this was the way people talked to African Americans in that time period. And it wasn’t just bathrooms and restaurants that were segregated. People were run out of their homes for the color of their skin. African American children received lower standard education materials than white children. People were lynched, killed, murdered for the color of their skin. 

What was shown in this movie was nothing. One coach yelling racial slurs at Robinson and one pitcher that beamed him in the head. That is nothing compared to what he went through. Absolutely nothing. If the reasoning behind not showing the actual events of history is because we don’t want to scare people then we better get over that really quick. Staying ignorant is what keeps us from moving forward. If we are uneducated in the error of our ways then we will continually make the same mistakes until the end of time. And it’s sad to say that some people still think the way they did back in those days. And that is because of our fear to see the ugliness of our past. The sooner we face it, the sooner we can move forward.

I feel like it just wasn't enough to show the whole picture. Yes, you don't have to show his whole life from beginning to end, but you need to let me know who he was and put me into his world. But it was like everyone was afraid to tell me the truth. Throughout the movie everyone is warning Robinson about the struggles he will face and it leads up to this one scene! And then the movie ends. So we are told to believe that his troubles ended there too.

The movie also ends right as I am starting to understand Robinson. It is hard to have this type of movie when the main character barely talks at all. He is an internal sufferer as they would say. Which is fine if we get internal dialogue or we are constantly interacting with people who know him very well and can translate him for us (like his wife- who we BARELY SEE!). 

Overall

(This is "Moneyball" (2011)-really good baseball movie)

I can't penalize this film for not having any heart. I smiled and laughed many times whether at Ford's one-liners or at the strength of Robinson's character. But the potential that this film could have had and they blew it is what really upsets me. They had a great story to show the strength of a man in adversity and we get one bad scene and lots of wasted frames.

My suggestion- please wait for the rental. Maybe just borrow it from a friend. Or read a book instead if you really want to get to know Robinson. Or go watch a real sports movie like "Remember the Titans" (2000).

1.5 Baseballs out of 4

(3 Strikes and you are OUTTA HERE!!)