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It's 1946, and Negro league player Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) may be just the man to help Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) break baseball's 60-year-old color barrier. Writer-director Brian Helgeland's picture may not be a great movie, but it's the next best thing: an excellent movie on a great subject, soul-stirring and inspiring. Helgeland's departures from the facts are few and minor; the public record speaks for itself, not only in the shamefully overt racism of the 1940s, but in the unstinting support for Robinson from teammates like manager Leo Durocher (Christopher Meloni) and shortstop Pee Wee Reese (Lucas Black). Boseman gives a potentially star-making performance, while Ford, at 70, segues smoothly from firm-jawed action hero to elder-statesman character actor.