42

It seems that every interview Harrison Ford was a part of while trying to promote the Jackie Robinson movie 42 was dominated by Star Wars and Han Solo questions. You can’t blame everyone for trying. Unfortunately, I don’t have Ford here to ask him about Chewbacca’s availability for the sequels, so I’ll discuss this film. Starring Chadwick Boseman as the legendary player, the film follows Robinson leading up to and during his improbable signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Ford plays gruff team executive Branch Rickey, who was largely responsible for bringing the player in.

A film based on an inspirational true story of a character that is collectively loved by most sports fans virtually writes itself. But 42 doesn’t take the easy way out. Robinson is not portrayed as the mild-mannered civil rights hero history remembers him as. Instead he’s a real human who gets angry, frustrated and actually makes mistakes. To be honest, they’d probably have to do quite a bit to turn an audience against the character, but he’s relatable while be being brave. Boseman definitely deserves a lot of the credit for that.

Creative license does play a part in the film. It seems like quite a coincidence that all the teammates who were nice to Robinson ended up being hall of famers and those that were mean got traded to the timeless baseball joke that is the Pittsburgh Pirates. I hate to bring up the elephant in the room, but I imagine some of the racists at the time were probably good at baseball. 42 is inspirational, exciting and entertaining. The jury is still out on how much of a sports classic it will turn out to be, but it follows the formula and humanizes one of the greatest achievements in American sports history.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.