42

By Harry McPhaul

42 was a truly inspiring film.  It depicted that time period in American history (late 1940s) with excellence.  Everything from the fashion to the old baseball parks (which were none existent) was done to every single detail.  Right in the beginning of the film I felt as if I had transcended into Jackie Robinson’s life.  I am not huge of biopics because it is difficult for me to differentiate the actor from the person they are playing.  Casting Chadwick Boseman was a great choice for this reason. 

Boseman’s ability to portray Jackie Robinson was surprisingly believable.  I had not seen him act before this film so I was a little hesitant.  He turned out to be home run.  I could see every emotion he was feeling, especially when the Phillies manager (Ben Chapman) was yelling racist remarks at him.  That was one of my favorite scenes in the whole film because before that it seemed like none of the chants he heard was getting to him.  It created this image that he was immune to the spectators.  In reality, no one could with stand all the racism from the crowd and teammates and not show any emotion to them.   

I could see that Chapman’s comments were almost the straw that broke the camel’s back.  After that at bat you can see Jackie had had enough.   He goes down into the locker room slams his bat against the wall, breaking it and starts to yell.  He is then comforted by Ricky (Harrison Ford), the owner of the team.   This was just one of the memorable scenes from this film.  Most of them involved Harrison Ford.

This was one of Harrison Ford’s best performances.   Everything from his accent to the way he walked seemed authentic.  I was glad to hear his reasoning for wanting to sign Robinson was not just so he could be credited as the first owner to sign an African-American player.   In simple it was “You made me love baseball again.”  This was my favorite quote from the film because it shows that he knew that the major leagues were supposed to have the best quality of play which means the best players.   He also figured out that the best players were not all white. 

From the very beginning of the film I could see that he was determine to fix baseball so that anyone who was good enough to play in the MLB should have an opportunity.   Even when two of his close friends were against it at first, later in the movie one of them was ready to defend Jackie against Chapman.  Ricky was able to make his point clear that this going to happen with you like or not to everyone who opposed him.   It was a powerful film that I enjoyed.  The only thing I did not like about Jackie was that he played for the dodgers but I would give this film  a 9/10.