| Show Cinderella l Man rings true until the the- final round Stephen Hunter The Washington Post PostIn In all respects save one Cinderella Man is so square you could shoot pool on its head Its It's straightforward honest inspirational inspirational inspirational the story of a straightforward honest inspirational guy guy and and one thought you have right away is how come they waited so long to make it into a movie And unlike the last Ron Howard- Howard Russell Crowe collaboration A Beautiful Mind it is almost entirely entirely entire entire- ly trick Theres There's no business of the hidden subjective camera where we think were we're seeing what would be Y 1 n. in fir tact fact f or considered r reality when in la were we're inside a diseased mind In this one what you see is what you get What you get is the professional arc de of Jim Braddock a aNew aNew aNew New Jersey heavyweight of the with a big heart a good punch and fragile hands After breaking his right he fell from grace with the lords of the game the game the movie represents represents represents them as stuffy cigar smokers in three-piece three suits suit sitting in a paneled boardroom He lost his New York license he couldn't get fights so he went to work as a stevedore on the Hoboken docks to support his beloved wife and three kids It was the height of the Depression and he was soon laid off his time full-time job the family just barely scraped by on his time part-time work the dole and a lot lotof lotof lotof of huddling together during cold Jersey nights in a ramshackle pow pow- erless apartment Then Jim caught a break finally After almost a year a highly highly highly high high- ly ranked boxer dropped out of a about about about bout and Braddock was asked to fill fillin fillin fillin in out of shape burdened by his wife's misgivings but desperate for a payday he gave it a shot And won Instead of could have been a contender contender contender con con- tender he suddenly was a contender He won again And won again Suddenly four fights into his second chance he was fighting Max Baer for the heavyweight championship of the world The story goes that during his time on the docks hed he'd favored his left leftover leftover leftover over the broken right and in so into ferocious doing built that arm a punching piston which hed he'd lacked initially In a funny way his misfortune misfortune misfortune tune made him a better boxer than he might have ever been otherwise You have to give it to Howard and Crowe for not giving in to the modern modern modern mod mod- ern tendency in biography to discover er and exploit the secret lives that so many great men have and even more of us less-great less ones Some biographers will even invent a nice juicy secret life for craven gain such as the fellow who argued that Errol Flynn was a Nazi spy or the other who said J. J Edgar Hoover partied in ball gowns But Howard and Crowe never stoop and Braddock God bless him defies any such temptations temptations temptations He seemed never to have gotten gotten gotten got got- ten drunk chased babes yelled or fought outside the ring As solid a family man as any father who knew best he was as humble as he was wash heroic h and as heroic as he was strong and as strong as he was was' noble He was just pure ring knight with singleness of purpose who found himself within a two one-two combination of boxing's grail In less able hands surely such virtue would grow tedious halfway into Reel 2 But Crowe manages to keep it by keeping it honest honest honest hon hon- est You dont don't feel him preening or posing you feel no smugness or self He gives us a good goodman goodman goodman man who doesn't know how good heis he heis heis is and for that reason takes no pleasure pleasure pleasure plea plea- sure in his virtue who just is and does without much fanfare Particularly now when were we're used to seeing jocks with the narcissism and ego of prima ballerinas surrounded by gofers sycophants and home- home boys to say nothing of diamonds minks and silk these lingerie are the t k Im I'm 1 I till still 11 talkie about noi tint not t me h JUCKS JUl c s i m suu si U g 1 their girlfriends its girlfriends I its it's an utter astonishment astonishment astonishment aston aston- to see a family guy whose idea of a good time is to read bedtime bedtime bedtime bed bed- time stories to his kids then sit by bythe bythe bythe the fire with his wife Mae played well enough though with an occasionally occasionally occasionally occa occa- wavering Jersey accent by Renee Were We're in an almost irony-free irony zone where everything everything everything every every- thing is exactly as it seems and no subtexts are available for subtext- subtext fanatics For example Howard and screenwriter screenwriter screenwriter screen screen- writer Cliff Hollingsworth largely avoid the temptation that the makers of that other inspirational story of a jock albeit a legged four-legged one couldn't avoid The latter made a symbol for Roosevelt's New Deal for a hope which gave the unemployed millions the belief that better times lay just ahead You thought Is this a speedy pony or some kind of national salvation salvation salvation salva salva- tion machine By contrast the fighter is just a fighter first last and always Crowe keeps him grounded in reality and Howard who loves the smoky squalor of time old-time boxing halls stays away from the Lincoln Continental commercial cinematography cinematography cinematography raphy that also bedeviled Howards Howard's Depression is scabby and cold full of in Central Park noless noless no noless less and legions of damned men Howards Howard's casting director has a great time finding faces that could have been taken out of Walker Evanss Evans's Dust Bowl photos Even the boxing choreography is good and its it's so brilliantly photographed photographed photographed pho pho- that it recalls the work that cinematographer James Wong Howe did on what is probably the best of all boxing movies Robert Rossens Rossen's body and Soul in 1947 Howe filmed on roller skates so he could get in close and stay fluid Theres There's no style Rocky or any of stylizations stylizations stylizations from Raging Bull Its It's just the game the thud of leather- leather encased fists smashing into human meat of body punches jabs and Cinderella Continued on Page 9 Cinderella Continued from page 7 two one-two combinations With all that going for it one must ask why didn't they just tell it completely straight In other words why did they feel so compelled to create an utterly bogus Max Baer for the virtuous Jim to fight in the movies movie's admittedly admittedly admittedly admit admit- compelling climactic championship bout I understand the melodramatic ic demands of the narrative To show off Jims Jim's virtue Howard and Hollingsworth felt they had to deliver an an- equally outsize portrait of evil so that the lines between good and bad right and wrong decent and profane were made ever starker so that the battle isn't so much between boxers boxers boxers box box- ers as between moral But see it was between boxers These meanings that outsiders impose as an Aryan demigod who had to be felled by the righteous Louis Griffith as a noble gay icon destroying the bigoted bigoted bigoted big big- Paret Clay was seen as asan asan asan an uppity punk to be straightened out by Papa Liston whose career as amob a amob amob mob enforcer was conveniently conveniently conveniently forgotten Joe putting the same uppity punk now called Ali AJi in his place an icon icon- of black selfhood reclaiming the title against the same Joe Joe have have no reality inside the ring where its it's nothing but punch will and pain- pain threshold Cinderella Man devises a whole new p personality for Baer turning him into a popeyed psycho and libertine libertine liber liber- libertine tine with two floozies on his arm or lounging in his hotel room in satins a cretin who boasts of killing men in the ring and makes rude sexual suggestions to Mae Craig Bierko plays th the e champ as a cross between Al Capone and Attila th the e Hun Does he think this is i s se his Oscar ride Does h he e want to be the next Mr T Its It's just not right In fact Baer was as beloved as any heavyweight in history was seen as a friendly clownish kind of guy and when a fighter died after a fight with him he was so upset he quit boxing for several months then went 4 2 when he came back It took an intervention by Jack Dempsey and a crash courser course course in in short punches to get him back on track He fought one great fight against and and pretty much phoned it in from then on As the great sportswriter Jimmy Cannon put it Baer was shaped to tobe tobe tobe be a great pug but his heart did not belong in that immense and thrilling body It was a clowns clown's heart Aheart A Aheart Aheart heart that must have hurt by terror and fear in the years Baer was forced to pretend he was a fighter Its It's not enough to ruin the picture but it does leave a abad abad bad taste in the mouth Maybe as an act of contrition contrition contrition contri contri- tion Crowe and Howard ought to collaborate on a alast alast alast last Clown Man The Max Baer Story |
