This appears to be a documentary connecting the Civil War with Jackie Robinson’s impact through baseball. That seemed to be its central theme, anyway. The Civil War and Jackie Robinson. There's considerably more to baseball than that, and frankly, despite my respect for Jackie Robinson, there is much more to the sport than just him. The film honestly makes the game seem disheartening; it feels depressing. There are interviews included where people describe how enjoyable baseball was... but he portrays it as gloomy and almost sinister. Interviewees speak of bonding with their fathers, playing with friends on warm summer days, and yet he manages to make those experiences feel lackluster. It gives the impression that he holds a resentment toward the sport, that he doesn’t grasp its fundamental nature, that he's trying to imbue it with deeper meaning. It feels as if Burns is attempting to elevate baseball beyond what it truly is, beyond what it could ever be—transforming it into a metaphor for America and all of its struggles. I have to disagree with that perspective, and I say this as someone who once lived in a terrible apartment simply because they could see a softball field from the living room window. I must dissent as someone who attends high school baseball games and local softball games just to watch people play when there’s nothing else to do, when I was single and had the freedom to indulge myself. Baseball is many things—a national pastime, a sport, an obsession—but fundamentally, it's a game. It isn't really about anything more than that. Baseball didn’t define the Civil War; it didn't define the Civil Rights movement; it’s just a game. Jackie Robinson was significant for America; his presence marked desegregation, and it made sense that baseball would be at the forefront of that change—it was a victory... but Burns implies that baseball desegregated the nation, which isn’t accurate. Baseball facilitated desegregation, and Jackie Robinson played the game exceptionally well… but the Civil Rights Movement is what truly desegregated America. What I'm trying to convey is that baseball is enjoyable because it *is* a game. People play it for the same reasons they engage in any other game, and they find pleasure in it because the weight of the world—things like war, segregation, hate, and politics—fade away while you’re playing. When you center baseball around all of those issues, you strip away what makes people love it; you eliminate the very reason they play.

Source on TMDB