Review: 42 (2013)

Writer/director Brian Helgeland's 42 is an openly earnest and sentimental bit of old-school hokum.  It is the kind of studio programmer biopic that was once a standard issue release, and it is absolutely successful in its respective goals.  It doesn't aim to be an all-encompassing epic of race relations in the 1940's, nor does it even strive to use the Jackie Robinson story as a grand statement on the eventual Civil Rights movement to come, even as its characters are all-too-aware of the color barrier being broken.  It masks a certain subtly and nuance beyond sweeping music and sometimes obvious monologues.  Released in April instead of October or November, it is surely not intended to win Oscars but merely to tell an educational story to a generation for whom its significance may have lessened over the years.