Forgot why I decided to watch this movie. It’s actually been on queue for some time and I was watching something and it sparked me interested and I went ahead and watched it. I think I might’ve been watching that new Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher or maybe I was going through IMDb and somehow landed on Cinderella Man.
Official Site
IMDb: 8.1/10 (21,338 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B+ / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 82% / Average Rating: 7.5/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
Spoilers: (Show)
So I’ve been meaning to watch this movie for some time already and finally got some time. The movie’s pretty straight forward and the trailer basically tells it all. It’s pretty much a true story about Jim Braddock, basically a feel good movie. However, one wonders how he was able to actually make a comeback after not eating well for so long.
It was touching when he went back to the relief office and returned the money which they loaned him. The movie seemed to have portrayed him giving them back a lot more, but it could also be the fact that they didn’t show him coming back multiple times.
One thing that caught me by surprise was the fact that Max Baer didn’t pull any funny move at the end like what they did in Million Dollar Baby. After reading more about Max Baer, it turns out he wasn’t that bad of a guy:
The Baer versus Braddock bout was depicted in the 2005 motion picture Cinderella Man; and it is notable to say that the portrayal of Baer in that film has since been criticized, as it placed him in a very negative light. Baer was portrayed as generally arrogant and even sadistic, showing no remorse over the death of boxer Campbell at his hand a few years earlier. However, it is known that it did bother him greatly, and it has never been documented that he bragged or boasted of it. Rather than swaggering, in actuality Baer was remembered as being jolly and full of laughter, and joked often. In film footage of the Braddock fight, Baer often smiles broadly, feins a near knock-down for laughs, and in defeat is gracious to Braddockânot at all as in the villainous manner Director Ron Howard portrays him in the film. However, it is worth noting that the Baer in the film does accept the defeat graciously, smiling and clapping at the victory of Braddock. Further, Howard exaggerates Baer’s record, falsely stating that Baer had killed two men in the ring, not one. For no matter how likely it was that Ernie Schaff’s end came about from injuries sustained during his encounter with Baer, it was never medically proven to be so.
Overall, the movie was awesome and the actors performance was just stunning.