It’s barely September yet Cinderella Man is already attracting an Oscar buzz. That figures. It’s just the sort of classy, fiendishly middlebrow fare that tends to sweep the boards at plodding, self-congratulatory award ceremonies. At the helm we have well known Academy Award nomination magnet, Ron Howard, a perfectly adequate director who, by default, seems to have become the most heavily decorated filmmaker since Walt Disney. Here, he’s joined by his old sparring partner Russell Crowe, who hulks impressively about as Jim Braddock, the titular prize-fighter and working-class hero.
Scarcely able to feed his family in Depression-era America, Braddock is lured back into the ring by one-time manager Joe Gould (Giamatti, who waltzes away with the picture) for one of the history’s most revered fights, a Madison Square Garden comeback against Max Baer. In the lead up, Renee Zellweger reprises Talia Shire’s worried Mrs. Rocky (retaining more than a touch of Roxie Hart) and loveable ragamuffins run about collecting firewood when the electricity gets cut off.
Such period details provide additional interest in a rather creaky boxing tale, but there’s never quite the same grim Steinbeckian sense of desperation as one might find in, say, Soderbergh’s King Of The Hill. Howard’s Depression, though heartfelt, is a distinctly sanitised setting where there’s little doubt that Decent Family Man will triumph in the end.
Happily, Cinderella Man does play rather well as a quality popcorn sports movie. The fight sequences, though unlikely to keep Mr. Scorsese awake at night, are beautifully paced and suitably tumultuous throughout. It’s enough to make a handsome entertainment then, but in much the same way you might use the word about a girl.