The movie that I will be looking at for my review is called “42” which stars the likes of Chadwick Bosman and Harrison Ford while being directed and written by Brian Helgeland that was released back in 2013 and was distributed by Warner Bros. The movie is based on the true story of the baseball player Jackie Robinson (Played by Chadwick Bosman) who was known as the first black baseball player to be involved in Major League Baseball (MLB) and was drafted to the Brooklyn Dodgers who had the jersey number of 42 (The reasoning behind the title of the movie).
During the movie, the movie focuses on the abuse that Jackie Robinson was a victim of including how during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies, the Philadelphia coach targeted and taunted Jackie Robinson with racial abuse as Robinson was trying to play, but Robinson ended up scoring the winning run to win the game. Also, the film focuses on the issue of racial segregation early on into the film after Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in where some of the players within the team outright refused to play alongside Robinson and even drafted a petition to ensure that Robinson would not be allowed to play with them.
But on the other hand, the film also focuses on the fact that not all of the players were racially abusive towards Robinson with how his teammate Pee Wee Reese (Played by Lucas Black) was shown to be very supportive of Jackson despite the controversy that he received by siding with Jackie Robinson with one of the main scenes in the film showing this when during a pre-game training session, Robinson received racial abuse from fans who were in attendance and it resulted in Reese going up to Robinson and placing his arm around him in a show of solidarity, which ended up silencing the crowd.
One of the main messages that is shown through the film is that people should be able to support and respect everybody regardless of their skin colour or their social class as near the end of the film, Robinson claimed a home run against the Pittsburgh Pirates which helped to claim the victory and advance to the World Series.
Overall, the movie does a good job in portraying the issues surrounding racial abuse in America during the early to mid-twentieth century and that Chadwick Bosman did a terrific job in his role as Jackie Robinson and showing the adversity he had to go through in the world of Baseball because of the colour of his skin.
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