Saccharine and starry-eyed, "42" places Jackie Robinson on a pedestal and peers in awe at the baseball icon. Writer/director Brian Helgeland's biopic of the first African-American to play major league baseball tries and largely succeeds to get at the real man behind the myth. But it also ladles on the hagiography in portions too huge to comfortably choke down.
42
42
42
Saccharine and starry-eyed, "42" places Jackie Robinson on a pedestal and peers in awe at the baseball icon. Writer/director Brian Helgeland's biopic of the first African-American to play major league baseball tries and largely succeeds to get at the real man behind the myth. But it also ladles on the hagiography in portions too huge to comfortably choke down.