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Here's to you, Mr. Robinson

In today's over-saturated sports market it is a bit self-aggrandizing for baseball to still call itself "America's Pastime". With football, basketball, hockey (do they still play hockey?), wrestling (if that can be considered a sport), golf (definitely not a sport), and the like screaming for attention, baseball, with its somewhat ponderous pace of play, can feel a bit quaint and boring to the uninitiated. But it wasn't all that long ago that baseball was the game that kids played after school, that adults discussed at the water cooler, and that entire cities pinned their pride on. It was also a simpler game in its heyday. Before the days of the multi-million dollar contracts and free agents, the game was played by part-time athletes who frequently made just enough to get by and didn't spent too much time worrying about much other than winning that day's game. Some say it was a simpler, purer, and better game (no DHs, for one thing!). Unfortunately, it also outpaced only the Vatican and glaciers in the speed at which it adapted to change, which is one reason why Major League Baseball in 1945 still proudly hung a big sign on its door that read "Whites Only". Until, that is the Brooklyn Dodgers tore that sign down and introduced the world to Mr. Jackie Robinson.

For anyone remotely interested in sports or American history the story of Jackie Robinson and his 1947 season as the first black player in Major League Baseball is pretty well known, and "42" suffers only slightly for the lack of suspense. Opening with Branch Rickey's decision, as the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to bring a black player onto his team, the screenplay, by writer-director Brian Helgeland ("The Taking of the Pelham 1-2-3") doesn't give much by way of back-story for any of the characters. While this is admittedly the story of Robinson's introduction into baseball and not a Jackie Robinson biopic, a bit more of his personal history would have helped to set the scene a bit better, making him more of a character and less of an archetype. The same could be said for nearly everyone in the film, few of whom are given the material to move beyond being stereotypes. Nicole Beharie ("Shame") suffers in particular as Rachel, Robinson's ultra-supportive wife. Surely this process was a strain on her as well, but the audience sees virtually no glimpse of it. That said, the character actors cast in the supporting roles do a roundly good job of embodying those types, most particularly Alan Tudyk ("Serenity"), who plays Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman so hatefully that it's hard not to jump up and punch the screen. Christoper Meloni (HBO's "Oz") and John C. McGinley (USA's "Burn Notice") are also welcome additions in their respective roles as Dodger manger Leo Durocher and legendary Dodger broadcaster Red Barber, but their characters are ancillary at best.

Fittingly, it is up to Chadwick Boseman ("The Express") to convey Robinson's struggle to make it through that first year and he does a very nice job of it. Playing the role very quietly, Boseman still manages to express the frustration, anger, despair, and hope that must have churned beneath Robinson's graceful exterior. The real revelation, though, is Harrison Ford's turn as Branch Rickey. Far from being the distraction that he could have been, Ford reminds us that he is actually capable of acting when he wants to. Not since 1991's "Regarding Henry" has he done more than simply played himself reading different scripts (a role that he nails every time, in fairness), but in "42" he actually inhabits a character and he does so very satisfyingly. He may bite a bit too hard into the accent occasionally and his aging makeup (Aging makeup! The man is 71 and he needs aging makeup to play a 66-year-old!) is a bit much, but those are minor complaints.

Helgeland does a working man's job behind the camera, doing nothing terribly exciting or innovative, but getting the job done. He deserves credit, though, for his choice to make "42" not only an interesting and enjoyable movie about one man's struggle, but also an interesting and enjoyable movie about the sport. The baseball scenes are well shot and throughout the story the race to win the pennant and make it to the World Series is always lurking in the background. Some of the scenes do descend dangerously close to after-school special territory, in terms of both writing and directing, for which Helgeland gets double the blame, but if you are willing to accept a bit of schmaltz and a dash too much reverence, "42" will suck you in to the story. As a wise man used to say, "Stick around and you might just learn something."