Cinderella Man 

Jim Braddock was a halfway decent professional boxer who had his licence to fight taken away for injury reasons then hit hard times during the great depression, and was barely able to provide for his family.

A couple of years later, still extremely impoverished, Braddock (Russell Crowe) got a one-in-a-million chance as a last minute replacement on an under card fight. But Braddock surprised everyone by winning the match. Motivated by the hard times he had faced, Braddock kept winning, leading to a title bout against the legendary Max Baer (father of Beverly Hillbillies star Max Baer Jr!), who had killed several previous opponents in the ring.

If you could ever accuse a film of being pre-packaged Oscar bait, it is Cinderella Man - Oscar winners Crowe and Zellweger (as Braddock's loyal wife) in the lead roles; a historical setting; an "inspiring" story of one man against the odds; a patriotic tag line - "When America was at its knees, he brought us to our feet". All brought together by Oscar-winning director (and former Happy Days star!) Ron Howard.

Howard is a competent director, but he has little flair or vitality. His films are all executed with a workmanlike precision, but rarely possess any personality. This is very much the case with Cinderella Man, which trundles along as predictably as possible, ticking off all the "quality film" boxes along the way.

Cinderella Man should've succeeded as entertainment on the strength of its story alone, no matter what the execution, and on a certain low expectation level, it does. But Howard does a remarkable job of squeezing most of the life out of the story by tugging on the heart strings so blatantly.

The film opens with a quote from famous New York novelist Damon Runyan: "In all the history of the boxing game, you'll find no human interest story to compare with the life narrative of James J. Braddock." It's hard to argue with this statement, but Howard seems so content to coast on the superficially "uplifting" bones of Braddock's life story that he forgot to make it interesting.

Thus the power inherent in Braddock's story only manages to muster a slight, occasional spark of interest where by all rights we should've been leaping out of our seats.

Zellweger and Crowe are fine actors, but are both held down by the blandness of the script. Their kids are insufferable, forced to embody horribly forced moments of family togetherness and bonding.

Sideways star Paul Giamatti is his usual personable self as Crowe's undyingly loyal trainer Joe Gould, but he too is exploited for trite scenes of emotional manipulation. Craig Bierko (The Long Kiss Goodnight) is engagingly physical as Baer, but his character is shamelessly demonised to histrionic levels to serve the film's villain needs. This further highlights the filmmakers' desire to serve a boringly traditional story structure over narrative truths or artistic ambiguities.

One actor livening things up considerably is the increasingly interesting Englishman Paddy Consadine (In America, 24 Hour Party People), who plays a troubled dock worker friend of Braddock's. Arguably giving the only performance in the film with any complexity, you'll find yourself wondering what Cinderella Man would've been like with Consadine in the lead.

The boxing scenes have an efficient brutality, but don't really break any new ground, save for the occasional (and jarring) CSI-style zoom-inside-the-body-to-see-bone-breaking shot.

The period sets look expensive, but don't add much to the film.

Most of the post-release press Cinderella Man received in the States focused on how it failed to live up to commercial expectations, despite predominantly positive critical notices. This doesn't really tell us anything - worse films than this have been more successful. Most theorised that it shouldn't have been released during the blockbuster American summer season, despite such a strategy working for the similarly-themed Seabiscuit in 2003.

Cinderella Man is not a total bust - it is straightforward storytelling that many will find suitably uplifting. Those with a propensity for a nostalgia will find something to enjoy, if they are generous.

But it's far from great. What Cinderella Man really needed was a few shades of grey and a healthy dose of grit.

Not recommended.

Dominic Corry

Cinderella Man is out now.