The story of heavyweight boxer James J. Braddock, the Bulldog of Bergen, the Pride of New Jersey, a working-class hero for real. It's something of a puzzle why his story had not been told on screen before, seeing as how we have it on the authority of Damon Runyon, who conferred on him the titular nickname, that no human-interest story in the entire history of boxing can compare with it. Runyon, to be sure, passed from the scene in the mid-Forties, or well before the story of, say, Sonny Liston; but the latter's shadowy tale is not the type to interest Damon Runyon, or for that matter humans in general. Braddock's, on the other hand, is the "inspirational" one of a real-life Rocky, a Seabiscuit on two legs, who, after challenging for the light-heavyweight crown in his early career, broke his hand in the ring, piled up the losses, lost his license, lived with his family in abject poverty through the first half of the Depression, took work on the docks when he could get it, got a second chance in the ring as the last-minute substitute for an injured fighter, then a third chance, and a fourth, and finally a shot at the title against the glamorous heavyweight (and, unacknowledged in the film, sometime Hollywood actor) Max Baer, an 8-1 favorite with two dead men on his record. You ask yourself what sort of human would be interested in telling such a story, or what sort would be interested in watching it (cheering for the foreknown outcome), and you come up with a simple answer: a simp. More specifically, Ron Howard. Not for nothing is Howard a trusted name in the popular mind. He makes the "right" choices, meaning the expected ones, the proven ones: grainy-photography clichés for gritty authenticity, desaturated-color clichés for bleakness of mood, golden-light clichés for domestic warmth, slow-motion clichés for the fights. He is fortunate, though, to have in the lead role one of our more sympathetic, more soulful leading men, Russell Crowe, with jug ears and a haircut to show them off, looking as if he could have stepped out of a Lewis Hine photo, walking a steady tightrope between dignity and degradation. Renée Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Bruce McGill, Craig Bierko. (2005) — Duncan Shepherd
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