Cinderella Man | 
| Director: Nbcu
Actors: Russell Crowe, Ren?e Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Craig Bierko, Paddy Considine
Studio: NBC Universal
Buy New: $8.99
Rating:  299 reviews
Sales Rank: 7058
Genre: Action
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 145 Minutes
ASIN: B000I9S5U0
Theatrical Release Date: June 2, 2005
Release Date: December 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Synopsis:
Academy Award winners Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger star in this triumphant, powerfully inspiring true story. In a time when America needed a champion, an unlikely hero would arise, proving how hard a man would fight to win a second chance for his family and himself. Suddenly thrust into the national spotlight, boxer Jim Braddock would defy the odds against him and stun the world with one of the greatest comebacks in history. Driven by love for his family, he willed an impossible dream to come true. |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 294 more reviews...
 Riveting Humanity June 18, 2005
Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas)
140 out of 150 found this review helpful
Friends had warned me that much of the first part of this film was slow and they had made the same observation of Angela's Ashes. I disagree with them about both. In Cinderella Man (a phrase attributed to Damon Runyon), it is imperative that James Braddock's circumstances and those of his family are carefully, unhurriedly established to create an appropriate context for the process by which he resumed his career as a professional fighter in 1934 and then faced Max Baer on June 13th, 1935, in Long Island City, N.Y. Although a 10-1 underdog, Braddock won the heavyweight championship of the world. (The film takes us to this point.) He would lose his heavyweight title two years later in an 8 round KO to Joe Louis, "The Brown Bomber." Braddock retired after a final win over Tommy Farr in 1938.
Other reviewers have shared their own reasons for thinking so highly of this film. Here are mine. First, perhaps only in Raging Bull is the physicality of boxing so compellingly portrayed. Also, I admire the skills of those who recreated a period more than 70 years ago, one during which the Braddocks and millions of others struggled to overcome hunger and illness as well as poverty and especially terror and humiliation. Under Ron Howard's direction, the quality of acting is outstanding, notably Paul Giamatti as Braddock's manager and trainer, Joe Gould. (I still think that Giamatti should have at least been nominated for an Academy Award in recognition of his performance as Miles Raymond in Sideways.) With regard to Renee Zellweger (as Braddock's wife Mae) and Craig Bierko (as Max Baer) as well as Paddy Considine, Bruce McGill, Ron Canada, David Huband, Linda Kash, and Nicholas Campbell, they had to work within quite specific limitations in their supporting roles. I thought they were all just fine.
Finally, I wish to single out Russell Crowe for special praise. Whatever his public persona may be, he demonstrates exceptional self-discipline as well as nuanced talent in the lead role of the courageous heavyweight champion boxer. Braddock fought for "milk," to be sure, but in doing so became a symbol of hope for other victims of the Great Depression. Crowe brilliantly portrays Braddock's fundamental decency and integrity as well as his total devotion to the welfare of his wife and their three children. To me, this is Crowe's finest performance thus far.
Crowe Superb in Extraordinary Film Bio... December 11, 2005
Benjamin J Burgraff
67 out of 71 found this review helpful
"Cinderella Man", Ron Howard's heart-felt film biography of boxing legend James J. Braddock, never received the recognition it deserved when first released, due, in large part, to Russell Crowe's bad press following a telephone-throwing incident. Overzealous critics tended to lump the incident and film together, and despite Crowe's public apology, many moviegoers skipped it. Now that the film is available on DVD, it's time to acknowledge the film for what it always HAS been; director Howard and star Crowe's FINEST film, together!
Braddock's story is so amazing and inspirational, that it is astonishing that it's taken seventy years to tell it. Sylvester Stallone 'borrowed' from it, extensively, in creating "Rocky", and in viewing the film, the parallels between fact and fiction are obvious; Braddock had been an 'up and comer' in the twenties, but broken bones and ill-advised matches had cost him a championship shot. Then the Depression struck, Braddock was wiped out, financially, and he struggled to support his wife and family through the most harrowing period in American history. Considered 'washed up' and too old for a comeback, all the boxer had going for him was his wife's love, his manager's faith, and his personal integrity, which refused to allow him to give up. He tenaciously climbed back up the ranks of younger title contenders, earning the adoration of a country trying to rebuild their own lives, as well, until, finally, he had his championship match, against ruthless 'killing machine' Max Baer. Their match would become the stuff of legends!
To director Howard's credit, he never 'over-sentimentalizes' the story, or tries to turn it into a soft-focus 'fairy tale'. His vision of the Depression is the most accurate and heartbreaking since the documentaries of the '30s, and will come as a revelation to those whose only knowledge of the period is a paragraph in a history book. Jim Braddock is not a 'Superman', but a hard-working, decent man with no higher vision than to provide his family a better life, and as magnificently portrayed by Crowe, he embodies qualities of honesty and dignity that many of us dream of, but seldom achieve. In any other year, he'd be a shoo-in for an Oscar for his performance, it's that good!
Matching Crowe's portrayal are Renee Zellweger, as his loyal wife, Mae, who perfectly channels a '30s 'style', as well as a gutsiness that is timeless, and the wonderful Paul Giamatti, as manager Joe Gould, who would sell everything he owned, rather than see Braddock give up. Giamatti, a veteran character actor who finally saw his 'breakthrough' in last year's "Sideways", should finally get his long-deserved Oscar, for this role.
"Cinderella Man" is a film that will continue to be cherished long after the filmmakers are gone, a tale rooted in an earlier era, but still timeless.
Movies just don't get better than this!
 One of boxing's greatest stories comes to the big screen June 14, 2005
Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA)
42 out of 61 found this review helpful
This is one of those real life stories that truly is almost too good to be true, a true story that out-rocks ROCKY, with a far more likeable central character. The tale is such a superb one that one would imagine it impossible to botch, though Ron Howard is one of the few directors capable of doing precisely that. Luckily, Howard, despite some efforts throughout the film (of this more below), does not manage to ruin the movie, though in the end it is more accurate to say that it succeeds despite and not because of his contributions.
I would cite three main reasons the film manages to succeed:
1) The basic story generated by Jim Braddock himself. His improbable comeback at the height of the Depression to win the world heavyweight championship after injuries had caused him to leave boxing to work on the shipping docks in New Jersey, when he could find work at all. His plight would force him to go on relief at one point. Everything would change, however, when he was offered a one-time opportunity to fight a leading contender, whose opponent had been forced to withdraw at the last second. For Braddock, it was an opportunity to get some cash to keep his family's head above water, but when he improbably defeated the contender, he unexpectedly found himself on the comeback trail. As any boxing fan knows, Braddock went on to defeat two other boxers in an elimination sequence for a chance to take on heavyweight champion Max Baer. Despite the odds, Braddock went on to defeat the heavily favored Baer, who gained a reputation as one of the most savage brawlers in boxing history, though he also has a reputation for not being one of the most skilled boxers. My favorite moment in the telling of Braddock's amazing story might be during the interview before the title bout, when he explained that unlike the first half of his career, he now had a reason to fight: "Milk."
2) The performances of Russell Crowe and Paul Giamatti, who I have found to be two of the most consistently interesting actors of the past half decade. Crowe's offscreen antics sometimes obscure a massive onscreen talent. There have been times when I have thought him to be the finest screen actor of his generation, and this performance has done nothing to lower him in my estimation. Giamatti, who plays Braddock's manager, gained great notoriety in the widespread outrage expressed when he failed to gain an Academy Award nomination either for his amazing performances of the past two years, AMERICAN SPLENDOR and SIDEWAYS. There is an effortless intelligence in his performances that mask just how gifted he is. There is no actor I would rather see in a movie than Giamatti, and for a while I feared his unusual appearance might keep him from the kind of roles he deserves, but luckily Hollywood seems to have recognized just how extraordinary he is, and he unexpectedly emerged as an in-demand leading man. He will next year star in M. Night Shyamalan's next film LADY IN THE WATER. Though there are many other excellent performances in the film, these two provide most of the reasons for watching it. Although I'm a big Renee Zellweger fan, her role simply wasn't as memorable as many of her other roles.
3) The fight sequences. Although they do not rival the boxing action in RAGING BULL, which is likely to serve as the gold standard for some time to come, they equal or surpass anything else, and vastly surpass the absurd fight scenes in the ROCKY films.
Still, there were some things that infuriated me in the film, primarily two. First, Ron Howard was guilty of shameless attempted manipulation of the viewers. What I dislike about Howard (though I confess in interviews he seems like a nice enough fella) is the way he completely disrespects the intelligence of his viewers. He plays tricks on the audience, usually telegraphing his punches like a bad boxer. There are a host of instances of this in the film, but I will cite only two. First, at one point in the film Zellweger's character is tearing wood from a billboard in order to have some firewood. In the background we see a woman running after a man, begging him not to leave her, presumably a husband who has given up the struggle to keep his family together during the Depression. Later, under trying circumstances, Russell Crowe leaves his family's miserable apartment, and Howard frames it all so as to attempt to make us believe that she is afraid that he is leaving like the man we saw earlier. Of course he isn't, but this is the kind of cheap manipulation that only a hack director would engage in. The second example I would point to comes later in the film when the possibility of Max Baer killing Braddock is exaggerated to utterly ridiculous levels. Howard isn't content for Braddock to be an underdog: he must be in danger of dying as well! The historical record simply doesn't support such fears, and if we ask why it appears in the film, the only answer is: Howard is trying to make us feel a threat that didn't exist so as to further manipulate our emotions. This is just lousy filmmaking. I should add briefly that the photography was often sub par. There were a lot of perplexing transition shots that simply didn't do any work, where a camera would focus for utterly no reason on, say, an iron bar, and then pull back and pan over to others. Why? It was if someone said, "Well, we have to get this shot started, so we'll do THIS," without any clear understanding of why. Also, there was a lot of unsteady camerawork, which is odd in the age of the Steadicam. Directors and cinematographers will often use a hand held camera to engender a feeling of disease and vulnerability or disorientation, but it appeared at times in this one (and not just in fight scenes) with no apparent reason.
I was also highly disturbed by some of the attitudes expressed in the film about some of the victims of the Depression. At one point, for instance, Braddock applies for relief to feed his family, and the woman behind the counter, with an air of moral disapproval, says, "I never expected to see you here," as if he were guilty of some ethical failure. I found her attitude to be inexplicable. At a time when a quarter of the workforce was unemployed, why would anyone be the object of anything except sympathy and compassion?
Still, problems like this does not in the end keep this from being a great story. It remains to this day one of boxing's greatest fairytales. Who needs ROCKY when you have Jim Braddock instead?
Trivia: A sequence in the film shows a boxing match between Max Baer and Primo Carnera. The latter was in his day the largest boxer ever seen, at around 6'5, 260. His career was more or less the basis for the film THE HARDER THEY FALL, which was notable for being Humphrey Bogart's last film before succumbing to throat cancer. Interestingly, Max Baer has a significant role in the film. Baer's son, Max Jr., would later achieve fame playing Jethro Bodine in TV's THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES.
 Why couldn't Martin Scorsese have told Braddock's story? December 16, 2005
Mykal Banta (Boynton Beach, FL USA)
30 out of 47 found this review helpful
I was very excited about the release of this film. James Braddock has always been one of my favorite stories in the history of boxing. His story, known to all now, would certainly make a great movie. Unfortunately, this isn't it.
Director, Ron Howard, in an effort to add drama to a story that required no enhancement, has produced a movie full of one dimensional characters and elongated scenes of sloppy sentiment. The film has so many scenes of slushy gush, surging violins, and black-hearted villains that the true character of Braddock is lost amid the stock Hollywood set-ups.
Howard, who seems physically incapable of trusting an audiance, has to give his cartoon Braddock many hurtles. Poor Renee Zellweger as Mae Braddock is forced into the stock role for boxing movie wives, that of shrill shrike withdrawing all support from her husband for his dedication to the fight game. The real Mae Braddock, of course, was made of the same stern stuff as her husband and was nothing but supportive of Braddock's career.
And of course there is the problem of Max Baer
Howard had to have a villain, I suppose, without any shades of grey, so the memory of Max Baer is sacrificed. I cannot recall a Hollywood creation that has so criminally maligned the memory of a real life character as does Howard with his treatment of Max Baer. In the movie, "Max Baer" is a killer of men that clearly enjoys killing and hurting people. He is a repulsive, crude braggart that threatens to Kill Braddock in the ring, suggesting that once he has done so, he will be glad to "comfort the widow."
In reality, Max Baer was a gentle man who was nearly cursed with a sledgehammer punch and powerful physique. He did kill a man (Frankie Campbell) in the ring, and it nearly ruined his life. Everyone close to Baer commented on the deep depression he entered after the horrible event. Baer helped Campbell to his corner after the fight (Campbell died hours later in hospital, not "on the spot", as in the film) and went with him to the hospital. Baer paced the corridors outside Campbell's room, praying aloud. When he was told that Campbell was dead, he broke into sobs so that tears ran down his face. His first act was to approach Campbell's widow, who was with him at the hospital and ask her forgiveness. She gave it instantly, comforting Baer by telling him it wasn't his fault - explaining that it might have gone the other way - that it was just the fight game.
Baer was unable to sleep for a week after the fight, saying that he couldn't stop reliving the fight over in his mind. He began smoking again, a habit he had licked to stay in shape. Everyone that knew him agreed: he was never the same fighter after the death of Frankie Campbell. He simply didn't punch as hard and all the joy had gone out of the sport for him. From that day forward, boxing was just a job he was good at. Baer himself said, "Nothing that ever happened to me - nothing that can ever happen to me - affected me like the death of Frankie Campbell."
Max Baer's son, Max Junior, said that as he was growing up, his father often cried when thinking about Frankie Campbell. For those interested in the real James Braddock as well as the real Max Baer, let me suggest Jeremy Schaap's excellent biography, "Cinderella Man" from which most of the above details come from, and which does not suffer from Howard's adolescent need for "bad guys" to tell a story.
Perhaps Ron Howard might some day make a film about Max Baer to put things right. But no, that wouldn't work. In that film Howard would still need a villain and James J. Braddock would have to become a drunken wife beater. --Mykal Banta
You can have Rocky, I'll take Cinderella Man. August 19, 2005
Charlotte Proctor (Birmingham, AL United States)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
If you see only one movie this year, see Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger, directed by Ron Howard. You will be glad you did. Well-written, acted and directed, it will deserve any laurels it takes this coming award season. This review contains "spoilers". The movie is based on a real life--knowing how the story ends does not in any way detract from one's appreciation of it.
Cinderella Man is the story of James J. Braddock, a boxer in the 1930s who after suffering injury and a losing streak, came back to win the heavy-weight Championship. It is a mesmerizing story with indelible imagery of The Great Depression. The blood and violent behavior was appropriate to the story-confined as it was to the boxing ring.
Ron Howard makes movies about real people and real events-Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind, for instance. He sometimes glosses over, or skips entirely, unpleasant or unsavory events in the lives he translates to the visual medium. Nothing I have read or heard indicates that Jim Braddock was not the fine, fair, good man that we see onscreen. An example: After returning to the ring, Braddock (portrayed by Russell Crowe with jug ears) returned all the money he had drawn the past couple of years to the Relief Office. Not that you could do that today-there's no form for it. Nor would modern man see the reason for it.
The movie begins with the young Braddock, winning every fight, never being knocked out, providing a comfortable life for his wife and children. He was a family man, a virtuous man who loved and took care of his family. Then comes his family's grim financial decline in the early 1930s, after he was hurt in the ring, was out of work and on Relief-much to his shame. His little family lived in a succession of small, dark, cold rooms and his wife took in sewing. It ends with his victory over Max Baer in 1935.
At the depth of the Depression a last-minute cancellation afforded Braddock the chance to fight John "Corn" Griffin-a chance to earn a few dollars he so sorely needed. Braddock's third round KO amazed everyone. His subsequent defeat of Art Lasky set him up for the championship fight with Max Baer. When asked in an interview just what gave him his renewed drive, he replied that he knew what he was fighting for.
"What are you fighting for?" the reporter asked.
"Milk", said Braddock.
Max Baer was portrayed as a high-living mean son-of-a-bitch who fought dirty when he could. He was tall and his longer reach and powerful right mercilessly took out his opponents. He had killed two men in the ring-Jim Braddock looked like being the third. (Max Baer's son, Buddy Baer of "Beverly Hillbillies" fame, takes exception to this portrayal. No one denies two men died fighting Baer.)
Braddock and his manager studied films of Baer's fights. They looked for ways to avoid that murderous right. Braddock went the full fifteen rounds with Baer, in spite of Baer's low blows. He got in some good hits of his own and left Baer a bloody and disappointed man when the unanimous decision made Braddock Champion.
Braddock lost the title to Joe Lewis in 1937, and after defeating Tommy Farr in 1938 he retired from the ring. Braddock used his earnings to buy a family home and invest in business he knew: loading dock machinery. He lived happily ever after.
(This review is based on the theatrical release.)
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