Cinderella Man represents the last of the movies lent to me by my friend, who has since left town again, so I'll probably have to mail back her movies, but I digress. I put off watching this movie for several reasons. First: Russell Crowe. I think he's a good actor, but for some reason, his presence in a movie sometimes turns me off. I don't know what it is about him, but he's not my favorite, though I did like him in LA Confidential and A Beautiful Mind. It's a quality I just can't put my finger on.
Second: this movie is about boxing. Of all the sports in the world, I like boxing the least. Well, maybe I like it slightly better than professional wrestling. I just don't understand why we need organized fighting, and the only reason I know anything about boxing at all is because I used to play Mike Tyson's Punch Out, or whatever that game was called, on Nintendo when I was a kid. Remember that game? Great graphics, right?
Despite these qualms and quandaries, I found myself engaged in Cinderella Man enough to like it. The film sort of has a quality not unlike its chief subject: it's determined to hit you in the head until it knocks you out as you cheer on the main characters.
The film is a biopic about James J. Braddock, the "Bulldog from Bergen" New Jersey. In the 20's, he was a promising professional boxer, who had won several bouts and was doing well for himself until a broken hand and a stunning loss to light heavyweight champion Tommy Loughran destroyed his career, including a revocation of his boxing commission, and sent his professional hopes into a tailspin right about the time the Great Depression started. Braddock spends the next several years trying to work for peanuts like so many others in support of his wife Mae (Renee Zellweger) and his three children. When he and his family are at their lowest, with barely any money to pay for heat and electricity, Braddock's manager, Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti), arranges for Braddock to fight one last fight at Madison Square Garden, where he got his start. He's up against the number two seed for world champion, John Griffin, and due to being too old and out of shape, he is expected to lose. He agrees to the fight for the money promised him, but against all odds, he wins the fight with a previously weak left hook that has been strengthened by doing hard labor at the docks. With this success, Gould convinces Braddock to train for the world championship, taking on heavyweight champion Max Baer (Craig Bierko), who, according to the film, has killed at least one opponent with his own ruthless fighting prowess. Braddock's comeback, and his quest for the championship, becomes a story of hope and triumph for all struggling during the Depression, as he pushes toward a literal fight for and of his life, and reporters hungry for news dub him "Cinderella Man" in advance of the ballyhooed contest.
As with all biopics, the filmmakers take some liberties with the truth of the real-life story to create drama and obstacles for the hero. After the film was over, I looked up Braddock at the Wiki and found a blurb about Baer as well. For example, in the film, Baer is depicted as a ruthless, uncaring, sucker-punching cad with a penchant for provoking his opponents and hitting them in places that are illegal even in boxing. In fact, my engagement with the film did not really begin until Bierko's Baer showed up with his cocky swaggert, lewd remarks about Mae, boasts about how his uppercuts cause murder, and jabs to Braddock's private parts. According to the Wiki blurb, Baer was gentle, strong, soft-spoken, and felt terrible about the one opponent who died after going up against him. Information like this tends to knock my enjoyment of the film down a tiny bit.
Ron Howard directed this picture, and he handled the material with his usual skill and attention to detail. I was particularly impressed with the art direction, for the reproduction of 1930s New York City as a backdrop was quite stunning. The city tenements where the poorest lived, the Hooverville in Central Park, the number of 1930s vehicles and storefronts, including an old Dillard's, were wonderful, and once my disbelief was suspended, I really felt like I was living in that time frame, holding onto hope that Braddock would reign victorious.
Yet, the film also descended heavily into a kind of manipulative melodrama. It's a true story with a happy ending that most people with a history book or a memory stretching back that far would know, so the filmmakers' challenge was to show Braddock's journey in a way that makes the audience forget what's to come. Howard is the master of making the audience forget about the ending they already know; consider Apollo 13, which is also one of my favorite movies, and how despite our collective knowledge that Jim Lovell and crew touched down on Earth again safely, we actually feared for them watching the film. The same is true here, except there seemed to be an extra emphasis on tugging, even yanking, at the heartstrings at key points. A pout or a tear from Zellweger's Mae, or an idealistic speech from Crowe's Braddock, or an inspirational pep talk from manager Gould, not all of which I can believe truly happened, made the film feel more like a soap opera than an against-all-odds comeback for a boxing title.
In fact, I get the sense that Ron Howard and crew were trying extra hard to make sure that the viewing audience sympathized with Jim and family, almost as if there was distrust that the story could sell itself. And maybe they're right. I was mildly bored or casually interested for much of the film, at least until Braddock started fighting the low-blows of Baer. Then, I started flashing back to the Karate Kid Part III, as Bierko's Baer reminded me of the meathead hired to take revenge on Daniel-san in that movie.
The performances were a mixed bag. Paul Giamatti was, as always, simply breathtaking as Gould. He has the ability to truly make me forget his real-life persona. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar (which he lost to George Clooney), and he was so committed to the role, I could see veins popping out on his foreheard during his most passionate urgings to Braddock or bouts of temper at Baer. Renee Zellweger gave a passable performance as Mae, though it was nothing that stretched the limits of her talent as seen in her other films. Russell Crowe also did a good job, though his forced New Jersey accent sounded like a cross between Pesto (the Joe Pesci Good Feather bird) and Ralph the Dog (an animated caricature of Rain Man) on Animanics.
All in all, though, I wasn't blown away by the film. I was happy by the inevitable end and cheering for Braddock along with his hordes of followers, but it was a sports movie like any other and wasn't anything that knocked me out. I rate the film a 7.5, between shaky and very good, due to the flaws I noted above. As for the test, it's not a pass. I don't own any sports movies except Field of Dreams, which is not the same underdog-achieves-victory-despite-all-odds sort of thing. I normally don't have any interest in them, and I was only interested in this film due to its attachment to the Oscars. If you like sports movies, however, especially if they are about boxing, this is probably a good one to take a swing at.