A dutiful man.(Cinderella Man)(Movie Review)

How, exactly, do you go about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?

We get an inspiring demonstration of that old adage in Cinderella Man, an unusually forthright movie biography centering on Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock, whose dwindling career saw a surprising late resurgence when winning fights became necessary for putting bread on his family's table.

Cliff Hollingsworth, with help from Akiva Goldsman and Gaby Mitchell, has written a can't-miss narrative that smartly sticks to the facts. Just as the Great Depression settled over America, Braddock's career hit the skids, with injuries and losses piling up insurmountably. Matches became scarce, and Braddock turned, like so many others, to scrounging for work wherever he could find it.

He managed to squeeze in a bout here and there, most of which featured him simply for nostalgia's sake. Things changed, however, when he scored upset wins against John "Corn" Griffin and John Henry Lewis in 1934 (which brought Braddock not only headlines but also enough money to turn the electricity back on). More wins followed, until Braddock no longer had to get up to work on the docks early in the morning after fighting in the ring the night before. His career climaxed with a 1935 win over the heavily favored Max Baer for the heavyweight championship of the world.

Cinderella Man, which features Russell Crowe as Braddock and Renee Zellweger as his wife Mae, explores the motivation behind the boxer's unlikely comeback. It's pretty simple: "This time I know what I'm fighting for," Braddock says at one point: "Milk."

Director Ron Howard, who previously worked with Crowe on the Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind, goes easy on the swelling background music and melodramatic plot contrivances that mark most inspirational movies. Like its hero, this picture operates with a sense of workmanlike necessity rather than gaudy flair.

Crowe is instrumental in pulling this off. Here as in his previous films, his non-onsense demeanor repels falsity like a flak jacket. ...