Chris Rock Slams Jackie Robinson Biopic '42'
By Ryan Gajewski
Chris Rock is clearly not a fan of the film 42.
In a DVD extra for his 2014 comedy Top Five, Rock performs a standup routine that eviscerates 2013’s popular Jackie Robinson biopic, which stars Chadwick Boseman as the boundary-breaking baseball player.
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"People liked that movie," Rock tells the crowd in the clip, which premiered on IGN. “I thought it was a piece of s—-.”
"Just the whole ‘legend of Jackie Robinson’ bulls—-," he explains. "They try to make it seem like he got to play because he was so good — like he was the first black man that actually learned how to play baseball. Like all the black people before him were just licking the ball."
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Rock also felt that the film gave too much credit to Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey, played in the film by Harrison Ford.
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"Any civil rights movie, there’s two heroes: There’s the black hero — and the white person that’s equally as important," Rock quipped about the film, which grossed $95 million domestically.
Top Five, also starring Rosario Dawson, Gabrielle Union and Kevin Hart, will be released on March 17 on DVD and Blu-ray.
Watch the trailer for 42 below:
Photo credit: Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File
