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| Cinderella Man (2005)
Starring: Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Craig Bierko, Bruce McGillDirector: Ron Howard Rating: PG-13 Category: Drama  |
ALSO! Check out where it ranked in our 2005 Year in Review.
Just a few short Hollywood years ago, boxing films had a tough time getting the green light. Boxing fans and cineastes in general have had a banner year -- right on the heels of the wonderful Academy Award winning “Million Dollar Baby,” director Ron Howard has given us “Cinderella Man.” The film tells the true story of James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe), a light heavyweight/heavyweight with brilliant promise in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Crowe, along with Renee Zellweger as his wife Mae and Paul Giamatti as his trainer Joe Gould, form a dynamic onscreen trio. They play their parts with nuance and heart, and seem to genuinely like each other and their jobs at hand. Crowe goes against type in rendering Braddock as a man full of humility and generosity.
At the film’s outset, we see Braddock on his way to big paydays, but the Great Depression hits and his savings are wiped out. His career also falters when his right hand begins to break every time he enters the ring. Braddock is forced to work the docks of New Jersey’s ports, but can barely make enough to keep his family together. The film is as much about the Depression as it is boxing, and Ron Howard takes a page from Frank Capra in showing the dignity in these tough and trying times. Men and women help each other, as well as their brothers and sisters, and there isn’t an evil or villainous character in the entire film -- the times and circumstances are test enough.
Braddock ultimately makes his way back into the ring and a championship bout with heavyweight champ Max Baer. Baer is a ferocious Hollywood dandy and is wonderfully portrayed by Craig Bierko. (When did Bierko get so physically large?) Baer seemed invincible at the time, having killed two men in the ring, and Howard builds such suspense in each fight that even though the end is known, the telling is masterful.
Damon Runyon, the great raconteur, coined the term Cinderella Man for Braddock. The whole country rallied behind Braddock, a broken fighter on the welfare rolls who gets a second chance. The people saw themselves in him. It is a story that deserves to be told and it is a story that Howard, Crowe, Giamatti, Zellweger, Bierko and the rest of the cast and crew tell so well.
~Matt Saha
DVD Review:
It’s too bad that Universal isn’t offering the same try-it-before-you-buy-it promotion they ran during the film’s theatrical release, because the “Cinderella Man” Collector’s Edition DVD is actually worth owning. Offered in a nice keepsake box, the film is presented in widescreen anamorphic 2.35:1 with a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. The film appears on disc one, along with three audio commentaries by (1) director Ron Howard, (2) writer Akiva Goldsman, and (3) writer Cliff Hollingsworth (none of which were included on our screener copy of the film), and loads of special features. Among the best of the bonus material on the first disc are a series of extended scenes that were most likely cut for time, a 23-minute casting featurette (“The Fight Card”) powered by cast/crew interviews, and short feature (“The Record: The History of Boxing”) on legendary trainer and film consultant Angelo Dundee. The rest of the disc is rounded out with another production featurette (“The Man, the Movie, the Legend”), a quick look at the Braddock/Baer fight with crew commentary (“Ringside Seats”), and a short piece (“The Friends & Family Behind the Legend”) on the Braddock family’s reaction to the making of the film.
The second disc of the Collector’s Set actually houses a few of the more interesting featurettes of the two-disc set, and ones purchasers of the single-disc release will surely miss. More delete scenes are included, as is a composer featurette (“The Sound of the Bell”), a four-part production diary (“Pre-Fight Preparations”) that is mostly re-hashed material from other extras, and the Braddock/Baer fight in its entirety. The real winners of the second disc are a 28-minute behind-the-scenes look at Russell’s Crowe’s physical transformation into James J. Braddock (“Personal Journey”), and “Lights, Camera, Action,” an interesting production featurette on multi-angle filming of the boxing scenes, as well as the unorthodox ways the camera team caught some of the action on film. This is probably one of the better Special Edition DVDs to come out of theaters in awhile, and despite the horrible box office draw, the film is one of the best films of the year and shouldn’t be missed.
~Jason Zingale
jasonz@bullz-eye.com