This is the third time I am
watching Cinderella Man a film by Ron Howard, titled after the nickname of
heavyweight boxing champion James J. Braddock and inspired by his life story. Russell
Crowe has acted as James J. Braddock and Renée Zellweger as Mae Braddock. Russell
Crowe has done excellent job, his acting is simply marvelous. This is a story
of James J. Braddock is a hard-nosed, Irish-American boxer who is forced to
give up boxing after breaking his hand in the ring. This is both a relief and
an upset to his wife, Mae: she cannot bring herself to watch the violence of
his chosen profession, yet knows they will have no good income without him
boxing.
As the United States
enters the Great Depression, Braddock does manual labor as a longshoreman to
support his family, even after badly breaking his hand. Unfortunately, he
cannot get work every day. Thanks to a last-minute cancellation by another
boxer, Braddock's longtime manager and friend, Joe Gould, offers him a chance
to fill in for just this one night and make a little money. The fight is
against the number-two contender in the world, Corn Griffin, and Braddock is
seen as little more than a convenient punching bag.
Braddock,
however, stuns the boxing experts and fans with a third-round knockout of his
formidable opponent. He believes that while his right hand was broken, he
became more proficient with his left hand, improving his in-ring ability.
Against his wife's wishes, Braddock takes up Gould's offer to return to the
ring. Mae resents this attempt by Gould to profit from her husband's dangerous
livelihood, until she discovers that Gould and his wife also have been
devastated by hard times.
With a shot at
the heavyweight championship held by Max Baer a possibility, Braddock continues
to win. Out of a sense of pride, he uses a portion of his prize money to pay
back money to the government given to him while unemployed. When his rags to
riches story gets out, the sportswriter Damon Runyon dubs him "The
Cinderella Man,"
A title fight
against Baer comes his way. Braddock is a 10-to-1 underdog. Mae is terrified
because Baer, the champ, is a vicious man who reportedly has killed at least
two men in the ring. He is so destructive that the fight's promoter, James
Johnston, forces both Braddock and Gould to watch a film of Baer in action,
just so he can maintain later that he warned them what Braddock was up against.
Braddock
demonstrates no fear. The arrogant Baer attempts to intimidate him, even
taunting Mae in public that her man might not survive. When he says this, she
becomes so angry that she throws a drink at him. She cannot bring herself to
attend the fight at the Madison Square Garden Bowl or even to listen to it on
the radio.
On June 13,
1935, in one of the biggest achievements in boxing history, Braddock defeats
the seemingly invincible Baer to become the heavyweight champion of the world.
A graphic at the
end of the film reveals that Braddock worked on the building of the Verrazano Bridge, and that he later owned and
operated heavy machinery on the docks where he worked during the Depression.
Also, he and Mae used the winnings to buy a house, in which they spent the rest
of their lives.
127 Hours is a 2010 biographical survival drama film directed, co-written and produced by Danny Boyle. The film stars James Franco as real-life canyoneer Aron Ralston, who became trapped by a boulder in an isolated slot canyon in Blue John Canyon, southeastern Utah, in April 2003, and was eventually forced to amputate his own right arm to free himself.
