Critic Reviews

From the first frame, it's clear that Jackie Robinson is a genuine labor of love. The warmly crafted two-part, four-hour PBS documentary from filmmaker Ken Burns positively glows with its admiration for the man and his accomplishments. ... Another mighty home run for PBS.

With Keith David again serving as narrator, and Jamie Foxx providing Robinson’s voice reading correspondence and from his autobiography, Jackie Robinson exudes class--unhurried, stately, yet never dull. And while Burns’ formula hasn’t really changed over the past quarter-century, it can and should be savored even more compared with the tactics broadly employed in so much similar fare these days.

The core portion of Jackie Robinson’s story is so familiar that Part 1 of the new Ken Burns treatment of it may not seem like vital viewing. But Part 2 examines Robinson’s later, less celebrated years, completing a portrait of an eventful life that, in the popular mind, is often confined to the ball field.

Like all of Burns' work, Jackie is beautifully done and blessedly free of the shoddy re-creations that slip into so many documentaries these days.

Jackie Robinson connects all of these dots and gives a far fuller picture of the man than the pedestrian 2013 feature film 42 or 1950’s The Jackie Robinson Story, in which Jackie played himself opposite Ruby Dee as Rachel.

Familiarity makes the story no less gripping.

Though there are moments where the film feels a bit too diffuse, what makes Robinson's life so remarkable is how many aspects of American life he touched.

As in his 1994 "nine-inning" film "Baseball," the subject suits the director's deliberate, even poky pace, and the air of what might be called critical nostalgia that colors all his films. Jackie Robinson brings the old world to vivid life, but its messages are for today and any day.

The film has all the hallmarks of a Ken Burns production, including period music (arranged by Wynton Marsalis), a utilitarian narration (by Keith David this time) and a lot of vintage still photos and film footage, some of which aren’t specific to the story of Jackie Robinson but set the scene, perhaps so much so that at times the film feels padded.

Jackie Robinson could have used more fire in its storytelling, but like its subject, there's nobility in its restraint. [4-17 Apr 2016, p.21]