42

This was a pretty good film.
Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) has the power to fulfill the dream of the Brooklyn Dodgers owner, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), cigar always in hand. Jackie is young, plus he has experience at UCLA and even served in the Army, though he was court marshaled because he refused to sit in the back of the bus.
Jackie has a silent way of attacking racism. While filling up the bus in the south, he is not allowed to use the restroom. He tells the bus driver to pull the gas hose out of the tank. He is allowed to use the bathroom.
His wife, Rachel (Nicole Beharie), whom he marries shortly into the film, just walks into a white restroom in New Orleans but they are bumped from the plane ride that they desperately needed to be on so Jackie could make spring training in time. While training in Florida, he also meets an aspiring sports journalist, Wendell Smith (Andre Holland) who will become his constant companion for the next several years.
For 1946, Jackie is on the Montreal team, but then the next year, he gets his big chance, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. But problems arise. Tons of his teammates start up a petition to get him removed from the team and his manager, the righteous Leo Durocher (Law & Order: SVU's Christopher Meloni) is fired because the Catholic Youth Organization has discovered that he is having an affair with an actress who was worth being fired over. Rickey convinces a retired manager to go against his wife's wishes and becomes the manager, who mostly sits back while Jackie deals with abuse and death threats, literally in letters that even the FBI knows about. People in 1947 simply can't stand having an African American playing a game dominated by Whites. The worst abuse he receives comes at the hands of the nasty Phillies manager, Ben Chapman (Suburgatory's Alan Tudyk) by stepping out of the dugout and calling him the n-word without ceasing every time he comes up at bat. Instead of his manager defending him, his teammates take that on themselves. This leads to Boseman's best scene, stepping into the hallway leading to the locker room, and breaking his bat, getting all emotional, finally all the hatred is getting to him. There is more-he is hit in the head with a pitch and while making  a play at first bat, the runner cruelly steps on his ankle, causing him to get stitches. He also learns that Rickey feels guilty so he is trying to right his wrongs and get players to have equal rights. The ending isn't nearly as epic as I would like, though it is at the same time, cross-cutting Jackie arriving at home plate after getting a home run against a pitcher against him and arriving home to the open arms of his wife.
The film follows history somewhat well, even including the birth of the Robinson's first child. Rachel believed that she was nervous about her husband's first game, but I knew better. She was pregnant. But it is hard to contain all of Robinson's playing career into just two seasons and his breaking of the color barrier. Yet, I still felt like they floated over too much of his career and could have focused on just the spring training of 1947.
The performances are good, with Boseman and Ford being quite good. Also, if you're a fan of TV shows, there are tons of familiar faces, Derek Phillips from Friday Night Lights, Ryan Merriman from several Disney Channel Films, Hamish Linklater from The New Adventures of Old Christine and the horrid The Crazy Ones, Brad Beyer, Officer Don from Royal Pains and John C. McGinley from Scrubs. The character Phillips portrays goes from wanting to be traded, to asking not to be, having changed his mind about Robinson, while Linklater is always loyal.
If you are a baseball fan, this film is a must, though I wish that it could have been more epic but Robinson did have to rise against so much prejudice, but he had help. Rickey, Smith and his wife Rachel were all good allies. And it is easy, in fact, it's impossible not to root for Robinson to succeed. You just want him to win so bad and he does. Grade: A-