Haven't Rocky and De Niro Pretty Much Said All There Is to Say About Boxing?

Rating: 4/10 (20 March 2006)

Ron Howard has carved a niche for himself as creator of treacly populist hokum, and it seems pointless to criticize his movies again and again for being maudlin, manipulative and pandering. To his credit, he knows how to put a movie together, and by now everyone should know what to expect from a Howard film and not complain when that's exactly what they get.
For the first two-thirds of "Cinderella Man," Howard appears to be bucking his own trend. It's quite respectable, fairly reserved and well acted. O.k., so Howard's version of Depression-era America still looks as glossy as a home decorating magazine, but I'll let that go. Russell Crowe is an actor who can make any movie better than it has any right to be, and Renee Zellweger is nowhere nearly as squinty and mealy as I thought she would be playing this character. And then we entered the final third of the film, and....Oh my. Watch out "Seabiscuit," there's another huge piece of corn coming up fast on your tail.
In case you're not sure which boxer you should be rooting for in this movie, we get lots of closeup shots of big-eyed kids looking pleadingly at Russell Crowe like a bunch of little Oliver Twists. We get a scene in a church on the night of the big obligatory show-down match that all boxing movies must have, in which every pew is filled with people praying for Jim Braddock to win his fight, and we get a priest delivering the following subtle line to wife Renee Zellweger: "In a way, he's (Braddock) fighting for them (the lowly downtrodden)." If you're still not sure who to root for, Braddock's arch nemesis, Max Baer (played campily by Craig Bierko), makes lewd comments about Braddock's wife in a nightclub a few weeks before the match. And in the ring, he continues to make nasty comments in between slow-mo shots of him leering like a sadistic psycho. And if you're STILL not sure who to root for, Baer punches Braddock in the balls a couple of times during their match for good measure. Not since Rocky Balboa faced off against Drago (or whatever that big heap of Russian was called in "Rocky IV"--or was it "V?") has a more cartoonish boxing villain stepped foot in a make-believe ring.
There's some scary talk here and there about Braddock possibly dying during the big fight, because he's old and past his prime. But since his kids are listening to the fight at home, and since this is a Ron Howard movie, we're pretty sure that he's not going to die. In fact, we're pretty sure he's probably going to win, or there would be no purpose for the film's existence. Howard dutifully connects all the dots, stealing from every other boxing movie ever made, throwing in lots of rapid-fire editing and thundering sound effects to make the fight scenes exciting.
It's sad and yet typical that Paul Giamatti, who gave two of the greatest film performances in the last few years ("American Splendor" and "Sideways") would only be recognized by the mainstream Hollywood constituency for the hammy, dreadful role he's saddled with here. I only hope he was given a hefty paycheck to offset all the scenery he was forced to chew as Joe Gould, Braddock's wise-cracking manager.
It figures that in a year that gave us hard-hitting film after hard-hitting film that took critical and thought-provoking looks at current trends in American culture, Ron Howard would deliver a product as sanitized, safe and bland as this piece of instantly forgettable "entertainment." It looks good and has a solid performance from Crowe--I can't recommend it for any other reasons.
Grade: C-