Poignant and well acted.

Rating: 7/10 (23 September 2014)

If Ron Howard knows how to do anything, it's how to make a cinematic but bland movie. If I was watching this in 2005, then Cinderella Man would feel like shameless Oscar bait, but one that would be a little worthy. Unlike most baity films like this, people really love Ron Howard's stuff, though this film didn't do too well at the box office at the time. With a good A-list cast and a decent true story, it's not fluff that just flutters into its the mess of its year. It can at least hold onto another 10 years. With a blend of depression-era domestic struggles and adrenaline- pumping fighting, it tries to tick boxes for everything and relatively succeeds in an involving way, if brazenly saccharine. But it fully embraces that and the conviction of the acting makes it work. I usually don't like Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger. I usually love Paul Giamatti but I was unsure at first.
However, they all won me over by the end, especially Crowe who brought rare heart to his performance along with his natural visceral grit. Granted, the film is still quite derivative at times. It brings nothing new to the boxing ring, besides perhaps a small innovation of a way of shooting POV. It frequently uses the disorientating flash of the 1920s camera which it fails to justify. The film has nothing to do with media tension, only fleeting mentions of how things will look in the press. It's purely surface, not adding anything besides mood. The film doesn't really have any themes rather than perseverance and universal emotions. But it's fine as a piece of easy entertainment, though it would've been best off not villainizing its eventual antagonist in such a cartoonish way, especially as the portrayal was nothing like the actual boxer. Clunky execution of certain things aside, Cinderella Man is a good and somewhat poignant film.
7/10