Synopsis
In 1946, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, took a stand against Major League Baseball's infamous colour line when he signed Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) to the team. The deal put both men in the crosshairs of the public, the press and even other players. Facing unabashed racism from every side, Robinson was forced to demonstrate tremendous courage and let his talent on the field wins over fans and his teammates – silencing his critics and forever changing the world by changing the game of baseball.
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Cast
- Chadwick BosemanJackie Robinson
- Harrison FordBranch Rickey
- Nicole BeharieRachel Robinson
- Christopher MeloniLeo Durocher
- Ryan MerrimanDixie Walker
- Lucas BlackPee Wee Reese
- André HollandWendell Smith
- Alan TudykBen Chapman
- Hamish LinklaterRalph Branca
- T.R. KnightHarold Parrott
Recommendations
- 100
Tampa Bay Times
One of the all-time great sports movies — primarily because it's one of the all-time great sports stories. - 83
Entertainment Weekly
Helgeland works in what I think of as a conservative — or maybe it's just really, really basic — neoclassical Hollywood style, spelling everything out, letting the story unfold in a plainspoken and deliberate fashion, with a big, wide, open pictorial camera eye. It's like the latter-day Clint Eastwood style, applied to material that's as traditional as can be. - 83
The Playlist
42 is excessively retro, neglecting the urge to pepper scenes with comic relief or oppressing, flashy conflict. - 75
Observer
It’s a perfectly unexceptional but slickly made, sincerely acted, often entertaining, sometimes manipulative and always watchable blend of action on the diamond and bravery behind the scenes that will please baseball fanatics more than movie historians. It’s a good enough biopic to make you wish it were a better motion picture. - 75
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Earnest, righteous, historically accurate and often entertaining. - 70
Arizona Republic
Helgeland has given us an impressive introduction to one of the most important men in U.S. history. But you can’t help wanting more. - 63
Rolling Stone
Given Helgeland's rep as a screenwriter (including an Oscar for 1997's L.A. Confidential), it rankles that 42 settles for the official story. The private Robinson, who died of a heart attack at 53 in 1972, stays private. We stay on the outside looking in. Let it be. - 50
The Hollywood Reporter
Pretty when it should be gritty and grandiosely noble instead of just telling it like it was, 42 needlessly trumps up but still can't entirely spoil one of the great American 20th century true-life stories, the breaking of major league baseball's color line by Jackie Robinson.
