Excellent film with one major flaw

Rating: Null/10 (3 June 2006)

The story of James and Mae Braddock and their children is both tragic and amazing. It's hard to imagine the character and heart it took for these people to survive. Braddock himself is all the more amazing in that he was literally starving at the onset of his comeback. I have some limited experience as a boxer and simply can't imagine how he accomplished what he did. Boxing is such a physically demanding sport. If you've never trained or boxed you can't imagine how destructive just the training is on the body let alone fighting in the ring. It's amazing that Braddock was never killed or severely injured during that comeback, let alone that he won all those fights.
Performances by the 3 leads are fantastic. Russell Crowe is the master today of inhabiting a role. He and Renee Zelweger truly resurrect Jim and Mae in all their humanity. Paul Giamatti is perfect casting as Jo Gould, Braddock's manager. The Braddock children are also quite wonderful as are Paddy Considine as the fictional Mike Wilson and Linda Kash in a small but well-played scene as Joe Gould's wife Lucille. The always excellent Bruce McGill as promoter Jimmy Johnston turns in another fine role. May and Jim Braddock's real life grand daughter, Rosemarie DeWitt is wonderful as Sara Wilson. Craig Bierko does a great job as Max Baer. It is however, with the role of Baer in the film that I feel is the tragic flaw in the film.
Max Baer is turned into a fictional and terrible villain in an unnecessary ploy to up the anti and drama in Braddock's already true-to-life impossible climb to the championship.
This portrayal of Baer is falsely modeled on Max Baer's own portrayal of a boxer in the great Humphrey Bogart film, "The Harder They Fall". This 1956 film, which was Bogart's last, was very loosely based on the career of Primo Carnera a trumped up Champion who was brutally beaten by the actual Max Baer. This film takes place not in the '30's but the 50's and has more to do with the corruption that existed and may still exist in the fight game. Baer's character in the film also is responsible for killing two fighters in the ring. But in the Bogart film he is bragging about the killings. In real life Baer was quite traumatized by these deaths and many people close to him felt he was never the same fighter after that. Baer became more inconsistent in his training and and his seriousness about boxing was never what it had been before. Baer covered up his pain by often playing the clown and was also known for his good-natured attitude. We never saw this in the film. Rather we saw a mean and sadistic person. I think that Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman missed a great opportunity in making Baer so one dimensional and denying the man's suffering and true nature. It might have added to the drama and would have not taken any more screen time if we saw this conflicted element in Baer. Regardless of how well he trained or how seriously he took fighting Baer still was considered then and now to have the deadliest right hand punch in boxing history. Braddock's story is a miracle enough as it was and didn't need to belittle another great fighter and character of the time. I understand that often in biopics that theatrical license often needs to be taken to move the film and add drama in order to keep the audience entertained. But with a little more creative effort that still would have happened and Max Baer's legacy could have been preserved.
The Baer family deserved as much respect as the Braddock family got. In the DVD Howard, Crowe and co. go into a lot of detail of how hard they worked to be true to the Braddock story and how happy they were that they had the support of Braddock's only living son. Why not do the same for Baer's family. Apparently Max Baer Jr. (Jethro on TV's Beverly Hillbillys) went out of his way during the production to get the filmmakers to consider the reality of Baer's story and was unsuccessful. It is unfortunate. Consider this, if it was your Dad being wrongly portrayed wouldn't you be upset?
Otherwise, this is an excellent film.