The power and the glory

As Russell Crowe's 'Cinderella Man' comes to our screens, Anthony Horowitz - best-selling writer and reluctant child pugilist - marvels at the public's unquenchable appetite for fairy-tales starring real men

Byline: Anthony Horowitz
Section: Review

It's strange to think that when I was at school, boxing was a compulsory sport. I'm not sure if this indicates that I am now very old or that my school was unusually brutal, but I do remember my last fight, in the blazing summer of 1968. I was 13 years old. My opponent was a boy called Jackson who was bigger, stronger and faster than me and was therefore able to pulverise me in front of a delighted audience that included my teachers, school-mates and parents.

But then, in the dying minutes of the fight - and I was the one doing the dying - I lashed out, and somehow my fist caught Jackson's face. To my astonishment, he crumpled in an explosion of blood, saliva and tears - I believe I actually knocked out one of his teeth. I still have the medal; more to the point, I still have the memory. I was horrified. This boy was my friend. We'd been growing up together for five years. How could I possibly have done something so horrible to him ... and in the name of sport?

It is hardly surprising, then, that I should have had a lifelong hatred of boxing, but I'm not alone. All over the world, the sport is in decline. The World Boxing Association heavyweight title fight went just about unnoticed when it took place last May, and there are few people who could name the current world champion. In Britain, boxing has just about disappeared from state and private schools, despite recent support from - of all people - David Blunkett. The British Medical Association has clearly stated its opposition "because of the accumulative and irreversible damage to brains and eyes''. The real truth is that boxing doesn't fit easily into modern society. In these touchy-feely times, there really is no place for a thumpy-hurty sport.

Except, that is, in the cinema. The boxing movie has been with us for as long as film itself. When Thomas Edison was developing the medium back in 1894, a boxing match was one of the first things he shot. Since then James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Paul Newman and even Elvis Presley have all taken to the ring. Sylvester Stallone built an entire career on the character of Rocky Balboa, winning three Oscars for Rocky in 1976 and then gradually traducing his own success with four increasingly dismal sequels. And then, of course, there's Scorsese's 1980 masterpiece, Raging Bull, a brutal, black and white examination of Jake La Motta's life, regularly cited as one of the 10 greatest films ever made.

It was perhaps even more ironic then that in 2004 Scorsese had to sit, lantern-faced, as Clint Eastwood stole the best director Oscar for Million Dollar Baby, a really nasty boxing picture that this time put a woman - Hillary Swank - into the ring, into a hospital bed and finally into a coffin. So what are we to make of Ron Howard's new film, Cinderella Man, which opened in the US just one year later and which has its premiere in London next week?

Cinderella Man is set against the Great Depression and tells the true story of James J. Braddock who goes from desperation - living in a freezing basement with his wife and three children, scrabbling for occasional work on the Jersey docks - to boxing glory, beating the world champion, a vicious fighter called Max Baer, in front of a crowd of 35,000 people when few expected him to get past the first round.

His name, and the title of the film, was given to him by the writer Damon Runyon, who is quoted in the opening titles: "... in all the history of the boxing game, you'll find no human interest story to compare.''

Russell Crowe, who had worked with Howard on A Beautiful Mind, stars as Braddock and went through the usual physical contortions that seem obligatory when making a boxing film, losing 50 lbs and, as the press kit cheerfully informs us, dislocating his shoulder, which almost shut down the movie altogether.

The physicality apart, it is an astonishing performance. Braddock was in essence a good man, and goodness is perhaps the hardest quality to sell on the big screen. But Crowe delivers all the way. He is brilliantly supported by Rene Zellweger as his long-suffering wife, while Paul Giamatti, fresh from his triumph in Sideways, is already being tipped for awards for his performance as Braddock's tireless manager, Joe Gould. The fights are superb and convincing. The period, with all its grimness, is perfectly evoked. The film opened last summer to almost uniformly enthusiastic reviews.

Boxing movies succeed because they embody the American dream. Put it in three words: Anyone Can Succeed. But more than that, they strip down the contenders - in more ways than one. Boxing may be full of fancy moves. To the enthusiast it is probably an art form. But what we ordinary punters see are two men in shorts who have to rely entirely on their own courage and determination as they simply slug it out.

As such, a game can become a metaphor for almost any aspect of life. In Cinderella Man, it sometimes seems that Braddock has taken on not just a boxing opponent but the entire Depression. At one point in the film, when he's fighting, he visualises starving children and empty milk bottles. Talking about his own poverty and desperation, he makes the same point: "Let me take it in the ring. At least I know who's hitting me.'' And during the climactic fight as the entire country tunes in to listen, they believe it too. The poster puts it crassly but accurately: "When America was on its knees, one man gave them hope.''

Cinderella Man may be based on a true story and certainly contains many authentic details, but at the same time it's often as much a fairy story as its title suggests. Nowhere is this more true than in its depiction of Max Baer, Braddock's nemesis. Six foot three inches high and with a 75-inch reach, he had famously killed two men in the ring. But that isn't enough for the film-makers. Played with enormous relish by the Broadway actor, Craig Bierko, Baer is turned into a monster of almost mythic proportions, first seen with two floozies in a hotel room, and later seen sneering and taunting Braddock about his wife, punching below the belt, and stomping off in a sulk when he loses. This is almost certainly unfair to the real Baer, but that's not the point. Braddock can't just win. He has to win big. He has to win for us all.

Watching Cinderella Man, it's easy to see why boxing is so much more successful on celluloid than it is in real life. Only very occasionally will life throw up a fighter who really does fit the mythic mould. Take the greatest of them all - Muhammad Ali - who only got into boxing when his bicycle was stolen and he was advised that he should learn to fight. Even more than Braddock, Ali had some of his greatest battles outside the ring: against racism, against Vietnam and finally against Parkinson's disease. He was a man who combined strength, conviction and physical perfection - the movies would have dreamed him up if he hadn't been real.

But he is the exception, not the rule, and left to itself the boxing world has a way of turning nasty. Look at Mike Tyson, now officially bankrupt, although apparently reformed (I found his recent pronouncement rather endearing: "I ain't the same person I was when I bit that guy's ear off.'') Look at the boxing promoter Don Simpson, about whom, perhaps, the less said the better. Look at the Krays, who both began in boxing and brought their own brand of homo-erotic viciousness to the field. Or look even - if you can find him - at poor Amir Khan. Here, at the Athens Olympics of 2004, was the most recent embodiment of the dream. Aged 17, an Asian boy from Bolton, he was the youngest Olympic boxer ever. You can almost see it on the movie posters. But he didn't have the screenwriters on his side. In the end, he lost.

There is an unforgettable moment in Cinderella Man as Russell Crowe walks into the ring for the final climactic fight, and the entire arena, packed with extras - thousands of them - falls silent. This total silence, in such a place and at such a time, is eerie, almost dream-like. And you realise that the dreams of every single person at that moment are riding on this man. That's the power of the film and the performance and, ultimately, the power of the game.

Thanks, Poly