You can take most movies labeled “true story’’ with a barrel of salt. But not “42,’’ an inspiring, old-school biopic that doesn’t pull any punches in depicting the ugly racism that Jackie Robinson faced on a daily basis as the first African-American player in Major League Baseball.
Writer-director Brian Helgeland (who wrote “LA Confidential’’) hews to the facts in a manner practically unheard of in baseball movies, which have always had a bias toward legend.
Basically upbeat and not at all edgy, “42’’ may not be a home run, but it’s certainly a solid three-base hit as worthy family entertainment.
The relatively little-known and charismatic Chadwick Boseman has star-making turn as Robinson, who played himself in a low-budget 1950 biopic.
Boseman is perfectly teamed with a nearly unrecognizable Harrison Ford, terrific in his first character role as gruff Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey.
In 1945, Rickey, a smart businessman and a devout idealist, senses an opportunity to make history, as well as a lot of money, by tapping the huge talent pool in the Negro Leagues during a time when racism was pervasive beyond just the Jim Crow South.
Robinson was chosen not because he was the most gifted — that would be Satchel Paige — but because he was a student athlete on integrated teams at UCLA.
Offering Robinson a tryout for the Dodgers’ minor league affiliate in Montreal for the 1946 season, Rickey extracted a promise from Robinson — who had been court-martialed in the Army for refusing an order to move to the back of a bus — to “turn the other cheek’’ at the many indignities and insults he would face in breaking baseball’s color line.
Turned away from hotels and airplanes, shunned by teammates, taunted by audiences and treated as a freak by the press, Robinson is obliged to flee in a late-night lynch mob in Sanford, Fla. (the same community where teenager Trayvon Martin was shot to death last year).
Stellar work in the minors doesn’t bring quick respect when he joins the Dodgers the following season. Several teammates sign a petition demanding his firing, and a bigoted pitcher hits him in the squarely head with a baseball.
Robinson’s steely resolve is nearly broken when the Phillies manager (Alan Tudyk, excellent) unleashes a stream of vile racist epithets that go far beyond the N-word.
It’s a hard scene to watch, but an essential one.
The epitome of grace under fire, Robinson enjoys the unwavering support of his wife, Rachel (Nichole Beharie), and African-American sportswriter Wendell Smith (Andre Holland) as well as Rickey and his manager Leo Durocher (Christopher Meloni).
Durocher, unfortunately, is suspended for the 1947 season, after spring training, by Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler. Not, as the film has it, for his affair with married actress Laraine Day (who later became his wife) but for consorting with underworld figures like Bugsy Siegel.
It’s a rare factual misstep in a film that takes great pains to get things right, including a superb Lucas Black as Robinson’s sympathetic teammate Pee Wee Reese and John McGinley’s extraordinary impression of legendary sportscaster Red Barber.
“42’’ — the title refers to the number on Robinson’s jersey, which was retired throughout Major League Baseball in 1997 — has excellently staged game sequences, not an easy feat for a sport that can comes off as boring on film.
Basically upbeat, Helgeland builds to an exciting climax as Robinson leads the Dodgers to a pennant — the first of six — during his rookie year. (The Bums won their only World Series by beating the Yankees in 1955.)
Robinson’s accomplishment speaks for itself, and doesn’t really need the incessant hyping of Mark Isham’s overly intrusive score.
Some of the film’s many telling quieter moments connect Robinson’s struggle to our world of nearly 70 years later.
One occurs in a beautifully handled scene in which teammate Ralph Branca (Hamish Linklater) asks why Robinson doesn’t shower with the rest of the team.
“I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable,’’ Robinson says before Branca persuades him to change his practice.
It’s not hard to think of the rampant locker-room homophobia that has kept any active player on a major sports team from coming out as gay.
I’m no baseball fan, but “42”comes across as more than just a baseball movie. It successfully captures a pivotal moment in American history through the lens of our national pastime.