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There is absolutely nothing in this biopic of Jackie Robinson that you haven’t seen in a hundred other baseball films … and that’s okay. You go into something like this understanding that. If you aren’t interested in baseball or the great Jackie Robinson, you won’t be seeing this film, anyway, right? No one is out to dish dirt here (not that I’m aware of any dirt to dish in Robinson’s case, but they can always make it up). It is simply a chronicle of the rise of the first black man to play in the Major Leagues. There are many times I found myself smiling, feeling warm all over. And many times when I actually felt sick to my stomach at the naked racism of many of the whites.

Wiki says the liberties taken were relatively minor ones. Like, Jackie’s pennant-winning homer was not actually pennant-winning; it put the Dodgers ahead 1-0 in a game they later won 4-2. Fritz Ostermueller’s pitch hit Jackie on the wrist, not the head, and he claimed it was just an ordinary brush-back, something with a long tradition in baseball, and not racially motivated. What the hell, I’ll believe him. But Ben Chapman, manager of the Phillies, really was the racist piece of shit portrayed here, and also anti-Semitic, given to Nazi salutes to the Jews in the stands in New York, of all places. He, and his team, really did chant “nigger nigger nigger” when Jackie came to bat. The hotel in Philly really did deny the whole Dodgers team lodgings as long as that coon was traveling with them. And after some initial resistance, the Dodger team really did rally around the black man.

The other hero here is Branch Rickey, owner of the Dodgers, the man who decided he had had enough of this segregation shit. He is well-played by Harrison Ford (who it depresses me a bit to realize is now playing crotchety old man parts). He did a search among the Negro League players for a man who not only could hit and field, but who he felt would be able to stand up against the almost unbelievable abuse he would suffer, and not fight back. He understood that if Jackie lashed out, he would be the one to get the blame in the minds of the racist public.