FILM REVIEW - "42"- This film has been getting great reviews and for good reason.  It should be required curriculum for every High School freshman Social Studies Program.  The message is clear without hitting you over the head time and again.  Racial prejudice is wrong and should not be tolerated.
I guess I have been watching too many action adventure films with non stop scenes .  Halfway into "42" I started to notice several slow scenes filled with interesting dialogue.  Were they necessary ? YES ! I had forgotten something very important -character development.  This film has it and it works well.
  "42" is two intertwined stories of the lives of baseball great Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager and president, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford). The action takes place during three critical years in the lives of both men as Rickey searches for and wills Robinson to be the first African American to play Major League Baseball.  Robinson's talent and restraint in the face of constant adversity earns him the respect needed to allowed many others to follow.  In baseball history, you can't mention one without the other.
   Boseman's performance is professional and human.  Ford has several powerful scenes and delivers in each.  His character at first seems to be driven by money, box office and winning.  But as we see later on, it is much more than that.  But the shinning performance in the film is Jackie's wife, Rachel (Nicole Beharie).
Her style, devotion and strength light up every scene in which she appears. Christoper Meloni as Jackie's friend and traveling companion rounds out a fine cast.
   One sequence at the ballpark sums up this entire story.  A father in the stands is shouting racial comments to Robinson as he comes up to the plate. His son, at first , looks not understanding.  Then he joins his dad in the verbal taunts.  3 Stars   Rated PG-13  language    128 minutes