Howard's Tale of Underdog Boxer Takes on Genre's Clichés, Wins;

During one of the many punishing bouts fought by an overmatched but desperately courageous James J. Braddock in "Cinderella Man," Braddock's manager exhorts him to beat his opponent from the inside out. He means it literally: The only way Braddock can win is by staying inside and pounding away at the other man's body. In its own fashion, though, Ron Howard's Depression-era movie also works from the inside out, building a classic underdog drama from depth of character, rich texture, vivid detail and stirring performances. Like its hero, who took the heavyweight championship from the lethal, supposedly invincible Max Baer in 1935, "Cinderella Man" wins big. It's "Raging Bull" minus the rage, though with a motivation that's at least as involving, and a lot more surprising. Unable to find a job that will put food on the table, the has-been boxer played by Russell Crowe draws new strength from his love for his wife and children.

Underdogdom, second chances and redemption are, to be sure, the basic ingredients of standard-brand uplift, so you may feel a certain wariness about buying into them. What's more, the studio marketing campaign for this fictionalized version of Braddock's life has been touting quite shamelessly what amounts to a two-legged version of "Seabiscuit" -- a beaten-down nation embraces yet another come-from-behind prodigy. For once, though, feel free to drop your guard. While the thematic resemblances to "Seabiscuit" are real, and occasionally bothersome, the new film has been made with such skill, conviction and uncharacteristic (for a big-budget studio feature) restraint that it redeems its feel-good formula.

This restraint does not extend -- though why should it? -- to the ring. Mr. Crowe's fallen golden boy of boxing, over-age and hobbled by injuries, takes and manages to give some terrible beatings, which are staged all too convincingly. (I could have done without several anachronistic X-ray shots that drive home the intensity of the violence.) Yet one of the production's many virtues is its light, agile spirit. "His dancing shoes are on," says a ringside announcer, amazed at Braddock's energy. The movie knows how to dance too, and not just during a succession of lovely, intimate scenes between Jim Braddock and his wife, who is played endearingly by Renée Zellweger.

Russell Crowe makes Braddock a spacious container for all sorts of surprising qualities: quiet tenderness; loosey-goosey grace in the face of impending disaster; affecting candor (when, for instance, he begs money from former associates); ready wit ("Welcome to New York," he tells an opponent after stunning him with a double jab). What a formidable movie star Mr. Crowe has proved to be in a lengthening string of distinctive films: "The Insider," "Gladiator," "A Beautiful Mind" (which was also directed by Ron Howard), "Master and Commander." His performance here is exquisitely counterbalanced by Paul Giamatti's portrayal of Braddock's manager, the complex, sometimes devious Joe Gould. If you thought Mr. Giamatti was great in "American Splendor" (I did) or in "Sideways" (I did), wait till you see him play this deliciously droll character, straight out of Damon Runyon, whose wide eyes can express boundless joy, and who is told by a boxing promoter, with grudging admiration, that "they oughta put your mouth in a circus."

"Cinderella Man" has its lapses and flaws. Renée Zellweger's role is written thinly (although the film finds time for a brief but telling discussion of the stereotyped roles that most women of the period were forced to play in real life). And a bafflingly vestigial subplot grows out of the occasional work that Jim Braddock does find on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River docks, in scenes that hauntingly echo Marlon Brando's Terry Malloy, the tragic ex-pug in "On the Waterfront."

It's there that Braddock strikes up a friendship with a fellow dockwalloper named Mike, who is played by the excellent English actor Paddy Considine. An ex-stock broker who's been radicalized by unemployment, Mike tells Jim Braddock, in a mercifully rare spasm of fraudulent dialogue, "It all stopped being mine." He eventually meets his fate in a Hooverville -- a homeless encampment -- in Central Park, but it's anyone's guess what he's up to, and why his character is so sketchy. Maybe that element of the script simply refused to come together, or the studio refused to let radical politics intrude on what's essentially an inspirational fable.

Yet, the film as a whole comes together with a sense of integrity that's been richly earned. The pace can be leisurely -- the running time is 144 minutes -- but never seems slow. Ron Howard's direction, from a smart, supple script by Cliff Hollingsworth and Akiva Goldsman, is nuanced when nuances are appropriate, powerful when all stops must be pulled out; it's his best work so far in a career marked not only by "A Beautiful Mind" but the witty and beguiling "Splash." The strong cast includes Bruce McGill as the promoter Jimmy Johnston, and Craig Bierko as a suavely malign Max Baer. The physical production, designed by Wynn Thomas and photographed by Salvatore Totino, serves the drama brilliantly, whether it's evoking the tawdry glamour of the old Madison Square Garden on (two-way) Eighth Avenue, or the somber spectacle of a nation beset by intractable poverty. Big Hollywood movies used to seethe with ambition and pulse with human energy: "Cinderella Man" honors the past and present by doing both.

Joe Morgenstern