A good movie

Since I kept hearing some interesting things about this flick, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, even though I was fully aware of Jackie Robinson’s story, it remains such an amazing tale and it is not surprising that the guy is considered as one of the most influential African-Americans that ever lived. However, if the story itself was really strong, I don’t think it became such an amazing movie though and I wonder what Spike Lee who had tried to make a movie about Robinson for a very long time would have done with this material. I mean, Brian Helgeland delivered a solid directing effort, probably even his best movie so far, but, after all, it was pretty much a straightforward historical sports biopic. For example, you get to see pretty much the whole team of the Brooklyn Dodgers being against Robinson but, slowly, almost one by one, they started to root for the guy. Of course, you might argue that it was actually historically accurate. To be honest, I don’t really care though and it was definitely some rather generic and predictable narrative trope. Concerning Harrison Ford, even though I always had a weak spot for this actor and even though it was pretty neat to see him playing something else than his usual characters, I’m afraid he didn’t really nail it. Branch Rickey had apparently a huge impact on baseball, in fact, even on US history, but Ford kept playing him way over-the-top which made it difficult to take his character really seriously. On the other hand, Chadwick Boseman gave a really strong performance providing this actor with a deserved breakthrough.  Of course, you might argue that they could have developed more Robinson as a character but Boseman was always convincing playing an athlete constantly under pressure who not only had to excel at his sport but who also had to pretty much change the course of American history. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was maybe nothing really groundbreaking, it remains such a fascinating and inspiring story and it is definitely worth a look.