42 (2013)

[stevejrogers]

Jackie Robinson biopic that has been kicking around since about the 40th anniversary of Robinson's debut finally rolls out. Checking it out in a little bit.

[Vic Sage]

ok performances, well crafted, but its the kind of picture where people say "Jackie, you're going to change this country", and he looks off into the distance, awaiting a future just over the horizon. It's all so noble, and liberal-minded, and well-intentioned, it functions more as civics lesson than compelling storytelling. And its the most obvious of hagiographies, making Robinson a secular saint, and the intergration of baseball a legendary act right out of THE NATURAL. There's even a scene where some boys are chasing after his train, after he's done some heroic deed, and he tosses one of them a ball. As the train pulls away, he puts his head on the track and announces "I can still hear him!" I really missed the Randy Newman music there. By the way, the kid grows up to be Ed "the glider" Charles (Mets content). Chadwick Boseman is terrific as Robinson, and Nicole Beharie as his wife, but they are both so saintly and sanitized, its hard for them to be human beings. Harrison Ford's Branch Rickey is sort of gruff and over-the-top at first but he grew on me. Still, the complicated relationship between Rickey and Robinson, with Robinson in later years resentful and angry about the way Rickey exploited him for press and profits, is entirely absent. In fact, there are no complexities of any kind... just complexions. Just black and white. But the world wasn't any more like that then than it is now.

One also has to wonder about this kind of myth-making when Larry Doby was playing in Cleveland that year, too, starting a few months later. Where's his halo?

The baseball action is ok, but the movie cares more about what goes on in between the pitches than it does what goes on between the lines. The movie does come alive, however, whenever 42 gets on base and starts screwing with the heads of those racist pitchers. You get the sense that this was the only way he could fight back, so he was going to make the most of it.

Ultimately, its the kind of movie your glad your kid will see, but better if your wife takes him.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Guest

[Edgy MD]

Wait a minute. I wrote that scene (minus the baseball).

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/8fb2e85c

The ball is bullshit! This ain't no Mean Joe Green commercial!

[Vic Sage]

you wrote it better.

[stevejrogers]

Quick first reactions:

-Pretty decent biopic, worth seeing from an educational standpoint. Nothing someone who knows the basic story of what Robinson went through would object to in a "they got that wrong" way or new information "discovered."

-Complete period piece, the rap song was just in the trailer. 1940s era score and some pretty good tunes mixed in.

-Larry Doby, and others whom came after Robinson for teams other than Brooklyn do get short changed...A LOT! The only reference to the movement that was coming was just in passing general comments (both with racial undertones and winds of change promises). As well as Campanella (who is referenced in a scene of Branch selecting Robinson) and Newcombe being noted as being with the Dodgers in 1948 in a "what happens after" captions.

-They tell Ed Charles' story of being inspired by Robinson in Florida of 1946 which is a nice tie-in to future events, even if the Dobys, Monte Irvins, Hank Thompsons, Pumpsie Greens, Ellie Howards and Sam Jethroes get nary a mention.

-A couple of groan worthy moments. One, they get the Reese-Robinson on the field moment that is in statue form outside Keyspan Park, but What. The. Fuck? Reese opines that maybe someday everyone will be wearing #42. *sigh* Second groan worthy moment, they do have a montage of various JR Day games of various MLBers decked out in #42s (including the present day Dodgers), well the first player shown in the montage, Derek Fucking Jeter!? Good grief...Neither ruins the movie, or takes points away from it by any means, but stuff that can be considered groan worthy material.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Guest

[Edgy MD]

Well, I'm convinced.

[bmfc1]

SteveJRogers--I had the same reaction when I saw Jeter. He was used to represent the fact that every player wears "42" for a day and I groaned as well. The Jackie/Reese moment became a BIG IMPORTANT SCENE and went on for a little too long. Even the umpire thought so. Nice to see Citi Field, I mean Ebbets Field.

Nevertheless, I loved the movie. Flaws here and there but well worth seeing. After reading so many qualifying reviews, I liked it more than expected. Most of us know the story so we carry our own expectations to the theater and that can affect your perspective. For an actor that hadn't played baseball since Little League, Chadwick Boseman certain came across as not only a good actor, but as a good athlete.

I wonder what younger people are going to think about Red Barber's down-home expressions.

[Edgy MD]

The funny thing is that's kind of analogous to Jackie. Part of the genius of Rickey --- and the mystery of Robinson --- is that he was more or less a semi-indifferent baseballer up until the Dodgers approached him. It was his third- or fourth-best sport, but there were a few bucks to be made after leaving the army, so he joined the Monarchs. Rickey not only recognized the athleticism that was more nurtured on the gridiron and track than on the diamond, but the focus to turn those talents to baseball and bring the refinement to his game as an adult that other ballplayers had learned much younger.

Maybe a baseball-first guy wouldn't have made the best pioneer, too focused on advancing his own dream to see the bigger picture. Who knows? But the Robinson on the basebaths was the real deal, and the skills he learned to escape the rundowns were a halfback's skills, staying low, dropping a powerful arm to the ground, using it as a fulcrum, and turning 180 degrees in an instant. Backman and others have used the same technique, obviously to lesser effect.

[Vic Sage]

there is a rundown scene, and its very good. In fact, all the base-running scenes are realistic, believable and the best moments in the movie. Those ridiculous leads off 1st that he took, those running starts of 2b, those unheard of breaks for home -- they were all so clearly his way of saying "eat this, you honkey motherfuckers!" or the 40s equivalent thereof. And Bozeman does shine as an actor/athlete, totally convincing as both.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: Maybe a baseball-first guy wouldn't have made the best pioneer, too focused on advancing his own dream to see the bigger picture. Who knows?

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'd like to comment on that comment.
Carl Furillo was interviewed by Steve Sommers on WFAN last night. Carl said that was the biggest difference between Jackie and Roy Campanella. (I paraphrase, but not too far off.) Jackie realized the significance of being in the Major Leagues while Roy just wanted to be a winning baseball player.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

MFS62 wrote: Carl Furillo was interviewed by Steve Sommers on WFAN last night.

Erskine. A conversation with Furillo at this point would be, as Major Strasser once said about one with Ugarte (Peter Lorre), a trifle one-sided.

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: MFS62 wrote: Carl Furillo was interviewed by Steve Sommers on WFAN last night. Erskine. A conversation with Furillo at this point would be, as Major Strasser once said about one with Ugarte (Peter Lorre), a trifle one-sided.

Oops. Tuned in during the interview. Steve kept calling him Carl, so I put 2 and 2 together and got 5. But Oisk did make the comments about the difference between Jackie and Roy.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

The movie used a former minor league ballplayer as "Jackie's" stunt double for some of the baseball scenes.

[Guest themetfairy]

Schmaltzy, but it is age appropriate for youngsters who may not otherwise be familiar with Jackie Robinson's story.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

themetfairy wrote: Schmaltzy, but it is age appropriate for youngsters who may not otherwise be familiar with Jackie Robinson's story.

Would you take a five-year-old?

[Guest themetfairy]

Mets – Willets Point wrote: themetfairy wrote: Schmaltzy, but it is age appropriate for youngsters who may not otherwise be familiar with Jackie Robinson's story. Would you take a five-year-old?

It depends on the five-year-old.

I would have taken MK, but he was never your typical five-year-old.

Does your five-year-old have a concept of discrimination? Can he deal with people being mean at times? Is he good with slow paced films?

If he saw The Natural and wasn't bored to tears, then sure.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Mostly wondering if there's anything that earned it the PG-13 rating other than the N-word and other salty language. I figure we'll talk about the language before and after the movie, but other than that he loves baseball and history and I was thinking this may be a good way for him to get a better sense of racism and integration.

[Guest themetfairy]

Go with your gut. There's nothing too graphic in the film.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

themetfairy wrote: Go with your gut. There's nothing too graphic in the film.

Thanks!

[ashie62]

Vic Sage wrote: ok performances, well crafted, but its the kind of picture where people say "Jackie, you're going to change this country", and he looks off into the distance, awaiting a future just over the horizon. It's all so noble, and liberal-minded, and well-intentioned, it functions more as civics lesson than compelling storytelling. And its the most obvious of hagiographies, making Robinson a secular saint, and the intergration of baseball a legendary act right out of THE NATURAL. There's even a scene where some boys are chasing after his train, after he's done some heroic deed, and he tosses one of them a ball. As the train pulls away, he puts his head on the track and announces "I can still hear him!" I really missed the Randy Newman music there. By the way, the kid grows up to be Ed "the glider" Charles (Mets content). Chadwick Boseman is terrific as Robinson, and Nicole Beharie as his wife, but they are both so saintly and sanitized, its hard for them to be human beings. Harrison Ford's Branch Rickey is sort of gruff and over-the-top at first but he grew on me. Still, the complicated relationship between Rickey and Robinson, with Robinson in later years resentful and angry about the way Rickey exploited him for press and profits, is entirely absent. In fact, there are no complexities of any kind... just complexions. Just black and white. But the world wasn't any more like that then than it is now. One also has to wonder about this kind of myth-making when Larry Doby was playing in Cleveland that year, too, starting a few months later. Where's his halo? The baseball action is ok, but the movie cares more about what goes on in between the pitches than it does what goes on between the lines. The movie does come alive, however, whenever 42 gets on base and starts screwing with the heads of those racist pitchers. You get the sense that this was the only way he could fight back, so he was going to make the most of it. Ultimately, its the kind of movie your glad your kid will see, but better if your wife takes him.

Its' like eating your broccoli...

[Edgy MD]

How unsurprising but disappointing nonetheless.

Jackie Robinson biopic made pitcher who faced him a villain - daughter

[Frayed Knot]

It's a problem when these fact-based movies, which often go out of their way to claim authenticity in some of the smallest details, seem to brush off or otherwise seem unconcerned by incorrect facts in some of the larger themes.

LINCOLN had several of these. Speilberg and others connected with the film went out of their way via interviews around the release to talk about their attention to authenticity: from the books that were on the White House shelves (which no film viewer could see anyway); to the ticking sound of Licnoln's actual watch; to Day-Lewis's accurate mimicry of the supposed pitch of Lincoln's voice. Yet when a current Connecticut politician pointed out that the role call scene switched the votes of two Connecticut reps, writer Tony Kushner (among others) dismissed the complaints as nit-picking nonsense that had nothing to do with the point of the film. But get the correct ticking sound did?

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, I don't know how they can let themselves get away with that. But obviously, all that "we paid so much attention to detail, it's scary" stuff is self-promotion.

In the Disney tradition, you create this composite figure as a cosmic scapegoat, make him devilish enough to get the rest of us contemporary right-minded whities off the hook, but overlook the fact that this poor figure you've made a conflation of all racist ballplayers is a real dude with people who loved him --- which doesn't make him a saint, but doesn't make his life cheap fodder for the point you want to make either.

[Vic Sage]

they're more interested in the appearance of truth than truth itself. much like our justice system and political process.

[Lefty Specialist]

I gave it a 'Giants'. It was okay, but they could have done a lot more. I took my 17-year-old to see it. He knew the basics of the story anyway, but at the end I told him that whatever they showed on the screen, what he had to endure in real life was a lot worse.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Finally watched this with my son last night. Had the same misgivings as what many of you stated above about the hagiography & Hollywoodization. And I agree that the leads did a good job with what they're given, the baserunning scenes are excellent, and everything is beautifully filmed. It's a good introduction to the Jackie Robinson story, but not much more than that.