Ron Howard's "opium inducing Hollywood"

Rating: 1/10 (5 June 2006)

Ron Howard's apologia to the capitalists and greed merchants who bankrupted the economy of the world in the 1930's borders on sanctimonious state sanctioned propaganda, made by an inept puppeteer of emotions. Produced merely to make train loads of money and sold to meandering and lost U.S. audiences, who humbly crave a place in the world and a pain numbing drug (feel good cinema), ensnarled both by their love of sugar and savvy chic theater appeal, while their enthusiastic leaders wage war in foreign soils, this is the continued attempt of Hollywood to enter once again the politics of the "I".
Using the theme of "courageous moral values" (much like today's incompetent charismatic leaders), which time and time again is sequestered by those in power to move the humble masses into ideological behavior patterns, Howard crafts a narrow look into the life of a street bruiser, whose lack of foresight and intelligence, makes him both gullible and 'proud', a trait possessed by most of the lower class, to their detriment.
Absolutely devoid of any human interest or articulation, this film is pure rubbish, created by an "opium inducing Hollywood" to forget that "times are hard" and that by the lie which they force feed to the masses, "sheer determination and hard work", they'll all be better. Well, that is hardly reality, and neither is this film, it borders on liquid loads of sentimentality, showing starving families and kids who crave a better life, hungering for the "American dream" just around the block, which itself is a fictitious and disastrous lie. Instead of properly showing the man as he is, an exploited and misguided boxer without an IQ or class consciousness, subjugated day one from indoctrination in an industrial-capitalist world, a mere casualty of an oppressed class, Howard surges him to the role of a saint for the poor and downtrodden. He pays off his 'welfare' because he's so ashamed to be on it, he gives apples to blind kids and he kisses his wife at night, oh what loyalty to authority! Well, inject sugar into my veins, I can overcome my own poverty if I merely get into a ring to have my brains splattered by greedy ring promoters and homicidal boxers. This childish disposition to which Howard indulges us to drink, is nothing but empty and stale air. Howard makes Braddock into a wooden man, invulnerable at all to our own failings, and therefore, inhuman, without fault.
Cartoon-like episodes are neither vivid nor distinct, and by the end of this film, we feel like we have watched another worthless re-packaging of the same indeposable values that the U.S. seems to reap upon the unaware, blind, obedient masses. Instead of actually reading important books, a trait which is entirely forgotten by U.S. audiences, they want "feel good portions" heaped upon them.
This film drips with the adoration of petty values espoused by the elite classes while they themselves eat well and are mired in their own hypocrisy. Please, some audience members are not stupid, but most are, and they will praise this unworthy film, along with others, as the splendid creation of an artist touched by his evocation of the past which he has created.