| Product: |
Cinderella Man (DVD) |
| Date: |
10/04/06 (93 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good Performances, Stirring Finale, Entertaning
Disadvantages: At times it's tries to hard to be award worthy
When I first saw the trailer for Cinderella Man I rolled my eyes back till I saw into my skull. It was an incredibly vomit inducing trailer that just screamed, Depression!, America!, Adversity!, Oscars!.
It was obvious that Ron Howard’s movie was aiming for the awards season and intended to pull on the heartstrings of Academy voters. So I don’t know why the studio released it in the summer of last year, as it’s not the kind of film I’d want to see during the summer blockbuster season. Needless to say it wasn’t the hit that was probably intended although it made a modest £60 odd million dollars but not enough to cover the budget.
Anyway I’d read that the movie was certainly better than the trailer made out. So I went ahead and added it to my DVD rental queue.
Cinderella Man tells the story of Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe), a boxer who is fighting his way to the top and reaping the rewards that come with it. But then the great depression of the 1930’s hits and Braddock is just another in a long line of men struggling to survive. He and his family live in squalor, there’s barely enough to feed the kids and Braddock is left slumming it in cheap boxing bouts. But then his ex-trainer Joe Gould get’s him a bout at short notice against an hot up and coming fighter. The $250 purse is too much for Jim to turn down and he enters the ring. What follows is a journey of inspiration as Jim wins the fight and then goes on to fight his way to a title bout, capturing the inspiration of the down on their heels public and becoming a working class hero.
Now I know this sounds like one of those corny movies where one man triumphs in a world of adversity and poverty. Well it’s exactly that but for some reason Cinderella Man still got me where it counts – my heart.
What makes the film is the great performances from Russell Crowe and Paul Giamatti. As Braddock, Crowe is very normal and you get an idea of the man who went from having something to nothing. Giamatti is great in an oscar-nominated performance that bursts with energy. Renee Zellwegger plays the concerned wife role well but it’s a fairly standard role.
Director Ron Howard manages to keep things from being far too sickly and oscar baiting. There is one season where Braddock goes begging cap in hand to those who know him that was pretty powerful stuff. The fight scenes are not exactly in Raging Bull territory but you do feel the punches although some of the memory flashback stuff is a little corny.
But come that big title match I couldn’t help but get caught up in the emotion of it despite the obvious outcome.
Cinderella Man is a pretty good film released at the wrong time. If I had to choose between Crash and this then it would be Cinderella Man each time.
- The DVD –
2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1
The transfer of this film onto DVD is on the whole excellent. The colour palette is very muted but the picture remains sharp throughout. There is a bit of grain in the image at times but this may be down to the choice of cinematography.
The soundtrack features some nice punches when it comes to the fight scenes with a lot of atmosphere. Aside from that this is fairly subdued soundtrack.
Extras wise there’s not a great deal on this region two release. Out American cousins has a two-disc special edition – damn their hides!
A collection of deleted scenes run for around twenty minutes. There’s nothing special here, the film runs for around two and a half hours as it is.
A featurette has Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, writer Akiva Goldsman and some other bloke sitting down and discussing footage of the real Jim Braddock. It’s an interesting insight into the real man who provides the basis of the film.
- Finally -
I enjoyed this film far more than I expected to. It’s an old fashioned against all odds story that at times is moving and features strong performances.
Summary: Like Rocky but without the great theme tune
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