It's no wonder Ron Howard is increasingly drawn to Americana in his
directing choices—he has been Americana. Howard entered our collective
consciousness as the archetypal boy and teenager from America’s "golden"
era. An actor in an idealizing medium portraying an already idealized time knows a thing
or two about how to tell his country's myths. His Cinderella Man is every inch a
film about what makes America great, served on a leafy bed of pathos. Boxing is the
object, not the subject
James J. Braddock unknowingly shouldered the Depression-era hopes and dreams of a nation
when his run at the heavyweight championship took him from obscurity and bankruptcy to...
well, how did Cinderella end up? Russell Crowe does a truly impressive job portraying the
humble yet driven Braddock, who fought not for glamour but because boxing was what he knew
(an idea explored further in Howard's commentary). Propped up by the strength of Renée
Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Bruce McGill and Craig Bierko (pitch-perfect as Max Baer), we
are drawn in by Braddock's fighting spirit and passion for his family. Subtle this ain't,
but I challenge you to watch Braddock begging for money to pay his gas bill without a
small lump in your throat. Zellweger's squeaky accent may bring something else to your
throat. All told, the dialogue is predictable; the film improves when action is allowed to
reveal character. The boxing is well-paced and authentic.
The DVD bonuses border on overkill. Not only are there three commentary tracks (Howard,
writer Akiva Goldman, writer Cliff Hollingsworth), not only do the deleted scenes have a
commentary track, but the selection screen for the deleted scenes has a commentary.
The documentary features have been pieced together from the same on-set footage and
interviews; the praise gets repetitive, but the inside access is so tremendous that you
can't help learning everything. A small feature about Braddock's life with remarks from
his surviving family contains valuable footage of the real man. One unique if
frustratingly short inclusion is Howard, Goldsman and producer Brian Grazer reviewing the
original Braddock-Baer fight with Norman Mailer.
Howard’s commentary is most comprehensive. He gets technical when speaking about
the boxing footage—how he shot it like the fire scenes in Backdraft, how he
filled Maple Leaf Gardens with inflatable dummies, how ad-libs made it into the final cut.
Howard also compares film details to period details and to the actual Braddock story, a
thread taken up by Hollingsworth, who is careful to separate the facts, the scenes he
wrote, and the parts "they" added, meaning Goldsman and Howard. Tension?
Goldsman, who says the least, observes that this is a story told through relationships,
not plot.
Not a visually or sonically flashy movie except during fights, the soft lighting and muted
1930s colour palate are nonetheless perfectly rendered, and the digital sound captures
tiny breaths and rib-cracking punches with all due vigour. Universal has put all its power
behind this package, though it is guilty of one omission and one outright scam. Legendary
trainer Angelo Dundee does speak about fight preparation and training in his feature, but
there is no "history of boxing." The scam is the Kodak photo gallery, a
two-minute commercial for Kodak with a few stills from the movie Photoshopped in.
Pathetic.
Besides that unpleasantness, this is a slick, well-crafted effort all around. If the film
is Braddock’s epic, the intent of the DVD is to cement Braddock as icon, the cast and
crew as heroes and Ron Howard as the American Homer.
