Excellent biographical film about one boxer's determination to succeed

Rating: 8/10 (10 July 2013)

This was a truly wonderful film about the life of James J Braddock. The film begins in 1928 with Braddock (another great performance by Russell Crowe) at the height of his career, he is winning lots of fights and is earning an absolute fortune. We then move on 5 years to 1933 (the year of the Great Depression) and we now find that Braddock is at rock bottom - his spiral downwards started due to a high profile defeat that he suffered back in 1929 and due to a string of further defeats and constant injuries (his right hand causes him major problems) Braddock now finds himself 'disowned' by the Boxing commission and he's forced to try and get work down at the dock in order to try and provide for his wife Mae Braddock (Renee Zellweger) and his children. The problem is the work at the dock isn't guaranteed as only a select few people are chosen each day and as this is during the Great Depression many people are out of work so there are lots of people waiting at the gate for only a handful of jobs.
From this point onwards, we start to see Braddock slowly work his way back to the top. He initially has to work at the dock, but also takes on small 'low profile' matches for rather insignificant sums of money (which usually just about covers the rent and electric at his house). His big breakthrough comes when he is given the opportunity to fight the number 2 contender that evening by his trainer Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti) due to his opponent having to step down due to injury and no other opponent is prepared to fight the number 2 contender at short notice without training.
As I've already mentioned, Russell Crowe's performance was very good and he has proved over the years that he is a talented and versatile actor. The supporting cast of Zellweger Considine and Giamatti were all excellent. The film also draws you in because Braddock is such a likable person, is caring towards others and is a real family man. Cinderella Man is also a roller coaster of emotions - there are moments that will make you smile, moments that will make you sad and moments that will make you cheer and that's what great film making is all about in my opinion.
The only (very minor) negative I could find in Cinderella Man is that I feel there could have been more training montages (as with Million Dollar Baby or Rocky for example).
Cinderella Man ultimately is an interesting biographical feature with some fantastic acting performances and should act as an inspiration to anyone that 'most things in life are achievable if you have the desire to succeed'. A truly brilliant work of art that I would recommend to everyone.