北美票房冠军 《42号传奇》

    Even Americans who don’t know much about the Great American Pastime know a little something about Jackie Robinson. The player who broke the color line in the major leagues* in the late 1940s was not just a great athlete* but a real profile* in courage and character, one with a great story.

    This Robinson story, written and directed by Brian Helgeland, focuses* not just on Robinson, but on the older white male who brought him into the big leagues, the devoutly* religious, eccentric* Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), who was the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

    The movie opens with him announcing his plans to desegregate* his team, gradually, to some of his officers. “With all due respect, sir, have you lost your mind?” one of them asks.

    The player Rickey is suggesting, this Robinson (Chadwick Boseman), refused to sit at the back of a military bus. That’s the quality that makes him the player Rickey wants. “If he were white, you would call that spirit!”

    Once a confused* Robinson learns of Rickey’s plan, he marries his girlfriend, Rachel (Nicole Beharie), and they begin to experience racial humiliations* right off the bat*, starting with getting kicked off a plane to Florida.

    As this is a feel-good movie, the hateful racism begins to be replaced by a grudging* respect. Christopher Meloni, as tough-minded Dodgers manager Leo Durocher, puts a spring in the movie’s step, as does Max Gail, who plays his replacement* after a scandal* sees Durocher made the victim of another kind of prejudice*.

    Ford quickly settles into his role as Rickey and makes the character a delight*. Boseman is wonderful at both emotional and physical levels. As the movie goes on, that means more and more, as does the excellent period production detail, and the meticulous* scenes of baseball action.

    (SD-Agencies)