MOVIE REVIEWS: CINDERELLA MAN
Friday, June 3 2005
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Some critics are already suggesting that Ron Howard's Cinderella Man may become the second boxing movie in a row to win the best-film Oscar -- even critics that don't particularly like it. For example, Lou Lumenick of the New York Post writes that the movie "is an Oscar-baiting fairy tale that manipulates the audience at every turn of the cliché." Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post praises the performance of star Russell Crowe as former heavyweight champ Jim Braddock and says that it "will no doubt make the middleweight Cinderella Man a contender -- an Oscar contender." Peter Howell in the Toronto Star calls it "the year's first guaranteed Best Picture Oscar nominee." Several critics take exception to the unsympathetic portrayal of former heavyweight champ Max Baer in the movie, including Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post, who observes, "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 2-4 when he came back." Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News also points out that Baer became an American "hero in 1933, when he wore a Star of David on his boxing trunks as he TKOed Hitler's favorite, the German Max Schmeling, at Yankee Stadium."
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