Cinderella Crowe Carries
Depression-Era Boxing Tale
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It is the
1920’s. James ‘Gentleman Jim’ J. Braddock, dubbed, “The Bulldog of
Bergen” for his tenacity, is at the top of his game. A fighter with an
unwavering desire to be the best, it is a given in the majority of
boxing inner circles that the man will soon fight for the championship
of the world. Even more so, ask anyone and they’ll tell you he’s going
to win.
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Fast-forward a
decade and Jim and his wife Mae are struggling to stay afloat caring
for their three young children living in a New Jersey tenement.
Drowning in debt, fighting leaving him battered, bruised and injured
with a right hand broken to smithereens, Braddock loses his boxing
license and now has to struggle working the docks in order to feed his
family. The Great Depression has arrived, this once great American
prizefighter now nothing more than an annotated afterthought in the
minds of most boxing aficionados.
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Somehow Jim’s
former manager and friend Joe Gould convinces the New York Boxing
Commission to allow Braddock one more fight. It’s a novelty bout in
Madison Square
Garden pitting the aging Bulldog against a young phenom named John ‘Corn’
Griffin. With no training and
desperately out of shape, this fight should be over before it begins.
But the interest is still high. Jim, in over 100 bouts, has never been
knocked out or been unable to finish a contest. The smart money
according to the betting public is that this statistic is about to
change.
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The betting
public is wrong. With nothing to lose and fighting to keep the power
on in his family’s apartment (not to mention sporting a new left hook
strengthened from working those long hours on the docks) Braddock does
the unthinkable and knocks ‘Corn’ Griffin out. Soon Jim is a national
folk hero, suddenly winning fights against some of the top-rated, and
much younger, boxers in the world. With each victory, the public
embraces him more and more, looking to him as a beacon of hope
illuminating their lives of hardship and struggle. But now Gentleman
Jim is in line to fight Max Baer, the current heavyweight champion of
the world, who has just so happened to have killed two of his
opponents. The sports world says fighting him is akin to suicide, and
Mae is understandably fearful for her husband. Yet Jim knows what he
is fighting for, and with the eyes of a hungry nation looking on he’ll
climb into that ring one more time striving for victory.
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Cut to today
and watch director Ron Howard, producer Brian Grazer, star Russell
Crowe and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, the team responsible for the
Oscar-winning “A Beautiful Mind,” bring Braddocks’s story to the big
screen. Entitled “Cinderella Man” in homage to the moniker slapped
onto the pugilist by legendary sportswriter Damon Runyan, the picture
is the first flick of the summer with end-of-year award aspirations on
its mind. And while the resulting flick may not reach the heights of
the group’s earlier collaboration, it’s still one heck of a rousing
entertainment, Braddock’s tale one impossible to not get at least a
little emotionally wrapped up in.
It goes
without saying that Crowe is perfection incarnate as the title
character. It’s getting to the point where there is little the
Australian superstar cannot do, his take on Braddock tough, focused,
uncompromising and full of deep familial pangs and responsibility.
Physically he’s utterly believable as a prizefighter. No surprise,
there of course, but he’s just as convincing on a viscerally emotional
level. While his work here may not have quite the subtle nuances of
either his performances in Michael Mann’s “The Insider” or Peter
Weir’s “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” I challenge
anyone to not get choked up when Jim has to shatter his pride and go
on public assistance. There is no false step to Crowe’s work here, no
missing beats, and I can’t imagine seeing a better performance by an
actor this year.
The supporting
cast is marvelous. Paul Giamatti, after two consecutive snubs for
“American Splendor” and “Sideways,” is a virtual lock for a Best
Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Gould, and even if
he’s no better here than he’s been in a multitude of other character
roles that still makes him borderline magnificent. For my money,
however, the truly inspiring work is turned in by two distinctly
different character actors, Bruce McGill (“The Insider”) as New York
boxing commissioner Jimmy Johnston and Craig Bierko (“The Long Kiss
Goodnight”) as Max Baer. McGill is mesmerizing as the oily pugilistic
kingpin, while Bierko alternately amuses and terrifies as the
murderous heavyweight champion. Both give such richly detailed
performances, inhabiting the characters so effortlessly, it is
impossible to think of the movie without them.
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Not everything
is wine a roses. Renée Zellweger (“Bridget Jones’ Diary”) phones in
her performance as long-suffering wife Mae. Granted, she’s got nothing
to do other than weep beautifully and tell Braddock how much she loves
him. This is as traditional a women’s role to come out of Hollywood in
ages, Deborah Kerr and Anne Sullivan surely shaking their heads as to
how little headway has been made for Oscar-winning actresses in the
new millennium. But Zellweger doesn’t even try. Sure she wears the
era’s fashions magnificently, and of course she can cry on cue, but
that still doesn’t make her of the character interesting.
In her
defense, Goldsman and newcomer Cliff Hollingsworth’s screenplay (based
on a story by the latter) doesn’t do her any favors. For those
thinking “Cinderella Man” looks a lot like “Seabiscuit” only this time
with boxing, you’re not very far off. Even for a story with the climax
already known (this is based on historical fact, after all) this is
still an amazingly unsurprising tale. Everything is telegraphed so
blatantly, the majority of the twists and turns so routine, at almost
two-and-a-half hours this boxing melodrama can be a tough sit. For me,
a (fictional) subplot revolving around a fellow dockworker (admittedly
played rather well by Paddy Considine of “In America”) is an utter
bore, not doing anything to illuminate either the picture or the state
of its characters.
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None of this
matters. Howard unleashes one of his best directorial jobs to date,
refusing to slobber on either syrup or sentimentality as the picture
progresses. Everything here feels honest and genuine; the movie
lived-in to the point of having to pay rent. In fact, for a good 45-50
minutes Howard puts real ‘depression’ in the Great Depression,
unflinchingly taking Braddock into the darkest abyssal of human
misfortune imaginable. With an exquisitely restrained score by Thomas
Newman (“Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events”) and
magnificent camerawork by Salvatore Totino (“The Missing”),
technically there are not movies better constructed than this. It’s
superb, compelling from first frame to last.
Like a left
hook to the juggler, “Cinderella Man” shatters when it most needs to,
building to a climax of astonishing poetical majesty. With Crowe
holding things together with his titanic portrayal and with Howard
steadfastly moving things along with expert precision, the movie
forces the viewer to take it seriously as a major work by a talented
artist. It may not rank up there with the heavyweights like “Raging
Bull,” “Rocky” or last winter’s “Million Dollar Baby,” but it’s still
a rousing melodrama worth taking an eight count for.
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Film
Rating:
êêê (out of
4)
