42
42 is the only number retired by every major league team in baseball - except during spring training when everyone wears that number. That’s a lot of reverence for a sport that’s had close to an aeon to revere its talent. Those in the know will tell you the reason for so much deference is that the guy wearing that number just after World War 2 was Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the colour barrier in pro baseball. With a story so well know you might wonder what could remain fascinating about a legend whose victories went way beyond the game he played. Well for starters perhaps on occasion we’ve felt a little smug that Robinson began playing in Canada for the Montreal Royals (ironically that name is more offensive to many Quebecoise today than the colour of any player then). However that had less to do with tolerance here than the Royals being a New York teams farm club. And maybe you perceived that Robinson was hands down so talented that the Majors just couldn’t ignore him. Well this film says that despite his copious abilities that really was not the case. In this story Robinson was a test case to open the flood gates on the untapped talent languishing in the Negro Leagues and the man pushing the envelope was Brooklyn Dodgers’ President and General Manager Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford). Soap star Chadwick Boseman (who spent a short time in Vancouver working on the Fringe series) is a riveting presence on screen partly due to his physical appearance which is so like that of the young Jackie Robinson. But the real standout in the cast (which includes Nicole Beharie as an endearing Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s rock solid wife) is Ford, who adopts a cigar induced gravely voice to play his crusty bible quoting character. Surprisingly a Jackie Robinson biopic has only been filmed once before and that was way back in 1950 when he was portrayed by Robinson himself. Yet with such an historical legacy to work with this picture focuses only on those critical first two seasons with the Dodgers. Don’t worry, that provides plenty of drama to hit a visual and emotional home run.