42
Director: Brian Helgeland
Screenwriter: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Christopher Meloni, John C. McGinley, Lucas Black, Alan Tudyk
Warner Bros. Pictures
Rated PG-13 | 122 Minutes
Release Date: April 12, 2013

Written and directed by Brian Helgeland, 42 stars Chadwick Boseman as legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson.

The biopic begins with Robinson as an up-and-coming shortstop in the Negro leagues with the Kansas City Monarchs, before moving up to the minor leagues, playing second base for the Montreal Royals.

Robinson was signed by Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), making him the first African-American player in Major League Baseball history. On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson emerged from the tunnel at Ebbets Field in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform – No. 42 – smashing the league’s color barrier and changing the sport of baseball forever.

Helgeland’s gee-whiz approach to “The True Story of an American Legend” is old-fashioned to a fault. Although the film doesn’t shy away from the hateful prejudice and racism Robinson encountered, 42 is so on-the-nose, so heavy-handed, that it borders on Hallmark Channel Original territory at times.