There may be another reason why this film is doing poorly....

Rating: 6/10 (19 June 2005)

...it's just not all that great.
No one working on this picture is capable of doing a BAD film. These are all hugely competent professionals. But despite being structurally interesting (the central character's "point of apparent defeat" is relatively early in the film, causing one to wonder how on earth things could get WORSE), the picture is really nothing more than a run-of-the-mill "boxing movie." Boxing movies are never about boxing, of course; at least, the good ones aren't. They're about "the triumph of the human spirit," blah blah blah. When a boxing movie comes along that really DOES shake up our preconceptions about the genre (I speak, naturally, of "Raging Bull," always and forever the finest film "about boxing" ever made), then it's news. The rest of the time, we watch boxing movies so that we can feel at ease with good old American guts and glory.
No matter how bad things get - a Depression, a terrorist attack, an illegal war run by all those nasty Republican WMD's (White Male Ding-a-lings) - we can always take comfort that ONE LITTLE MAN might make a difference. And it's true often enough that we can sleep more easily at night, visions of Russell Crowe's legitimately charming grin dancing in our heads.
The movie is long and I suspect not for "artistic reasons" (from a purely cinematic standpoint, one-third could easily be cut - and that's just the cornball lines). And I don't think it's long because long movies are chic award-winners.
I think it's long because Ron Howard and friends are gracious hosts. They don't want to turn us out into the cruel world any sooner than they have to.
It's a nice thought. But it's nice in the way that people are nice to you when your dog dies.
Well, that's nice for life. But it's not so good for art.