Midweek Mention... Cinderella Man

Cinderella Man

Cris: we are reviewing a suggestion of yours, right?

Dan: Yeah?

Cris: Yes. I, I

Dan: I was waiting for Riggs just to do an intro or something, or

Reegs: it. Yeah,

Dan: Yeah.

Cris: We start with the midweeker, so, hello everyone. We're here to review, at Dan's request, a movie.

Sidey: that, well, I'd say this is like right in the sweet spot of what Dan really and truly enjoys to watch. Yeah. A sports biopic.

Dan: A true story sports biopic.

Cris: well, who

Dan: just maybe it is and you've got sort of heavyweight actors in this as well because you've

Sidey: heavyweight law

Dan: yeah, Russell crowe he's in it. So we like russell friend of the pod, obviously,

Cris: Well, listen, I've met him.

Dan: you go

Cris: met him. He was in the same restaurant where I work. I didn't, I mean, he didn't come to see me, but

Sidey: probably did

Dan: what i'm talking.

I think he probably just came to look

Cris: he's, I was, he was surprised actually.

And it's always funny when I say this because I always assume that he's a very tall

Reegs: tall

Cris: and he's not, yeah, he's not very tall.

Reegs: very

Cris: Not really.

Reegs: really, no. He's

Sidey: Um,

Cris: he's not,

Sidey: not even five foot.

Reegs: even five

Cris: I

Dan: been one of the

Sidey: Was he fat when you saw him?

Cris: No, he was he was after he did the, because I was working at the boathouse here in Jersey and he was, he came with

Sidey: Oh, of course, yeah,

Reegs: All right, what did he order?

Cris: to the boathouse. Oh, I don't know. He didn't speak to me. I was at the bar. I just. Kind of seen

Reegs: him a drink

Cris: carried on with my night. I didn't I didn't care. I just seen him. That was enough

Sidey: Anyway, he's in great nick in this.

Cris: Yes

Dan: Yeah. He's, he's looking prime. And this is the, the true story of Jim Braddock, one of the old styley boxers. In fact, he's not that old because he lost his title, which is going right to the end of the film. To Joe Lewis.

Joe Lewis, who we've all heard of. Anybody

Sidey: But it was still, like, the 40s.

Cris: same age as you.

Sidey: Maybe, yeah, it's because it's not that long ago.

Dan: ago.

Sidey: For you.

Dan: not long ago for me at all. No, it's like I still remember it. But this wasn't black and white like my memories. This was filmed in Technicolor.

Sidey: Technicolor, yeah.

Reegs: Ron Howard. Yes.

Dan: You know it's solid when it's Ron. You just think happy days whenever Ron's coming in.

Sidey: Possibly. Depends if there's a factor. We can get into

Dan: that, okay.

Sidey: But this starts off a Like in the glory days with him winning a

Reegs: We zoom out from a photo in black and white to the actual shot that hit him. It's a nice little touch in a boxing movie, that, and Braddock has won a fight.

Sidey: He's managed slash his corner man is Paul

Cris: Giamatti.

Reegs: Yeah, Joe, Joe Gold. These are all real people

Sidey: people. Yeah, and I didn't know the backstory or anything. I knew that it was going to be a true story, but I didn't know the true story. So this was all new to me. And when he was counting the money out after the fight. I thought, oh he's gonna fuck, he's ripping him off, and he doesn't, like, he takes a cut.

Reegs: He takes his cut, but he explains exactly what he's doing and, but it's clear that he ju he trusts him.

Yeah, Braddock trusts him. You know, gold sets the fights up, he takes out his cut, expenses, everything else, but

Sidey: And he goes home, happy family, happy life, he's won a fight, it's all pretty

Dan: He's

Reegs: they live in quite an affluent neighborhood and you know, things are on the up. He's an up and comer. He is heading for the stars. He's 19 28. We are down

Sidey: Late

Dan: we are.

Reegs: it's, it's important.

Dan: seen this before, Sadiq?

Sidey: this is completely new on me. Story, the film,

Cris: I've seen it before. It's one of my favorite movies.

Dan: Okay, right.

Cris: Yeah, I'll say it from the beginning because it is one of my favorite

Dan: Yeah, well, it's It starts off, as you say, right at the, the Peak of Braddock's powers in as far as

Sidey: but he's still not, he's not contesting like the big,

Dan: He's

Reegs: No, but he's on the up and

Dan: he's on the up and up. He's he's kind of boxing really well.

He's getting more fights and as Joe Gould says, you know, keep going along here and they can't deny it.

Reegs: renowned for his strong right hand,

Sidey: never been knocked out. It's like Homer in The Homer They Fall, Yeah,

Dan: yeah, and the fights are long, you know, they're

Sidey: 14, 15

Dan: sixteen, fifteen rounds.

Sidey: Yeah,

Dan: I mean, really, really

Reegs: But they're not heavyweights like today's heavyweight boxers. These guys are not like 20

Sidey: they're more like 15 stone.

Reegs: stone

Sidey: Like when it comes to the title fight, spoiler alert, he, he looks fucking shitloads. They don't look like they're in the same weight

Dan: weight

Reegs: that was fairly true to life.

Dan: are going really well lots of people are enjoying knowing him and being around, you get all that glitz and glamour. Boom. And then we break

Reegs: Well, I was going to say, you mentioned what year was it, and it was very clearly 1928 because we have the hit of the Great Depression.

And in over, it wasn't that great, it was, there was probably better depressions, I reckon. And when we cut back to him, you know, they live in kind of a shack now, and

Sidey: a shack now.

Bare walls it looks pretty dirty and, you know, they're not, there's no money. It's a sort of ticking clock of what's going

Reegs: Yeah, well like much of the population, you know, they lost everything in that crash and you know, there's no work as well. We see him queuing up for work and being turned away and that sort of thing.

Dan: Yeah, it's like turned into Oliver Twist all of a sudden, isn't it? He's got nothing. The kids are playing with, you know, outside in the yard. Old, kind of burnt out bits of metal and sticks and

Sidey: well. one of the a key scene is where his eldest the son steals a salami from the

Reegs: that's right.

Sidey: and it's on the table.

And running Berg Mia may, may.

Dan: Yeah, that's

Sidey: She's booked him, but when Jimmy comes home, he's like, he's taken that, you know, you're the father, you need to sort this out. So, you know, grabs him by his ear almost and runs him down, back down to butcher. He makes him apologize and gives it back. But he talks to him outside and says, look, doesn't matter how bad it's We never fucking take what's not, he's very principled.

We never take what doesn't belong to us. And the, and the kid gives some sob story about how some of his friends or something have been sent away because the parents just couldn't afford to look

Dan: That's right,

Sidey: and he promises there. And then he makes the child a promise that he will, no matter what, he won't be sent away.

Dan: He He, won't do that. Yeah. And so that

Reegs: but the fact that that's a real threat though, is, is quite

Dan: And, and this has been in this

Reegs: parents who can't afford to, to look after their own kids, like.

Dan: And then they have to send him out

Sidey: They're

Reegs: They're eating this, like, slab of horrible meat. Vorscht, I think she calls it. And it's like

Sidey: It's like spam, basically.

Reegs: And he gives up his meal

Sidey: Yeah, it's like a symbolic thing,

Dan: They're watering down the milk. Yeah,

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Anyway, he gets the chance to have a fight. And 50 and this is where he hurts his hand,

Sidey: right? It's hurt going into the fight. Yeah, because he's putting his strapping on and he,

Reegs: he...

Sidey: feels it and he winces and he's like, fuck sake. He didn't tell me. It's like, look, I need, I just have to

Dan: Well, that's right. 'cause Joe Gold, who, who's Gul, who's his trainer, promoter corner man, cuts man doing the lot.

He, he kind of massaging his hand and he's getting ready to tape him and he, he can feel the bone that hasn't set. And he's obviously quite knowledgeable as well because he, he talks about tactics. He'll talk about, you know, all

Sidey: knows what he's doing and he doesn't want to send him into a fight where he can't defend

Dan: And he's just saying, look, you don't know what it's been like.

It's fucking tough times. I'm doing this because I ain't got a choice. And he goes, all right, I'll, I'll double tape it. And at that moment at a point where the guy puts his head forward instead of getting a punch on the, on the jaw or the sides of the face or something, he actually punches his, the top of his head, which is pure skull and bone and, and you get that kind of x ray moment, don't you?

It's just a wincing pain.

Reegs: pain,

Dan: And it flashes and you know that he's broken his hand then and this fight develops into basically a no contest. So it's the biggest

Sidey: him, doesn't he? He

Dan: They're just holding on to each other. The other guy ain't up to much either. He just wants to hold on because he isn't seeing it. The crowd are hating it.

They're thinking it's not worth it. Another promoter who does the bigger fights is also watching this night and he's. Just can't believe it's a final nail in in the coffin for Braddock's career and he actually ends up losing his license to box.

Sidey: I think the promoter guy's like, look... Because when there was a crowd there, I was like, fuck, how can they even afford to go, you know, prioritise, they still go to the fights on a Friday or whatever. So the promoters are like, we've got to put on a proper fucking thing to still get bums on stage. And we can't have fucking no contests and just 15 rounds of people holding each other.

You're out. You know, that's it. So that's

Dan: all he

Reegs: it revokes

Dan: hurts.

I was we were fighting hurts. He's he's got this. No, no, not having it. They send him out and he's he's kind of embarrassed. He's disgraced. He goes home to May. They didn't pay him.

Sidey: Which is probably what every, every household would have been the same though, it's just,

Dan: Yeah, without even

Sidey: it's soul destroying.

Yeah,

Dan: of, of going to earn

Reegs: Yeah, but she's also sort of partly relieved because she, what she wants this to be over. She doesn't want, you know, he's

Dan: He's had 80 fights, you know, he is, it's not like nowadays where you get 30 fights, maybe 80 fights going. The distance or, or quick or

Sidey: This time, this time is the hand but next time it could be, you know,

Cris: something, else,

Dan: EE, exactly. So,

Sidey: So, it's it's reduced to going to the docks, not like Dan does but this trying to get shifts when the freighters come in and

Dan: long shore man or something.

Sidey: I don't know, thirty, forty, fifty people at the gates and they need five, six men and they just He's

Reegs: they're just taking shit off of the boats and that,

Sidey: boats and

Reegs: not moving these huge sacks around Steve doors, and he's got his fucked hands, so he's just doing it with his left. And this guy covers for him

Sidey: covers for him.

Reegs: Oh yeah. Of course it is. Yeah. yeah,

Dan: he's, he's, yeah, he's, And he covers for him at one point when the supervisor comes over and says, Oi, we're not carrying you, like, He's going, no, no, he's fine,

Sidey: He's color. He's colored in the, the car the cars to be black. Same as his jumper. the

Dan: day after he's broken it, you know, I mean, so there's absolutely zero rest for the wicked and it gets worse than that.

Actually, as far as turning up after you've already done a shift, because he's, he's going through real tough times. Not every day he gets a shift and you start to, to see, wow, this once great fighter who had huge potential, who is looking at a world title fight is now. You know, he's lost his license.

Cris: he's barely living. The family's

Sidey: well, before see the mom and the kids just like vandalizing a billboard because they're taking the wood to burn in the stove to heat the house.

There's some shots where there's like a dollar note and a few coins piled up and that's all that they have.

Cris: and then he comes home and he says, if I work 26 hours a day out of 24, I won't be able to afford what we need.

Sidey: And so things are being cut off and the key one is he goes to get the milk. It's when we see the milk being watered down and there's a um you know bill

Reegs: bill on

Sidey: and then and then the last the final straw is that the electricity has been cut off and he comes home from a shift or I think it's actually from the pub.

I think Paddy Constantine's character buys

Reegs: him a beer. Yeah

Sidey: and we start to learn a bit more about him, but he gets home looks around. No kids. What's going on? May's like, sorry, but you know, I've had

Dan: an executive

Sidey: gone to the sister and

Dan: Can't

Cris: of the kids was already ill, was coughing and fever And

Reegs: said

Dan: he's got this kind of new Jersey action. He's going, no, you don't do that. That was, that was something completely different. But he had a new Jersey accent and he's like, no, I promised him. He never had the, he never had the conversation

Sidey: him. We should've had a conversation

Dan: But, but still, she should say before, in my opinion, just as a father, if

Sidey: a family decision, away

Dan: for an unspecified amount of time to around

Reegs: more dramatic in the movie, isn't it?

Probably

Sidey: Well, he explains to

Reegs: all like that in real life, like kind of a lot of aspects of this movie.

Sidey: Yeah. He explains to her that. He had made this promise to the boy that they, they absolutely would not be sent away, and he feels that he's personally let him down, he's really broken a promise, a very key promise and she feels bad.

I thought there was going to be more to that bit than there was in the film. He just goes off, that's when he goes to beg. He goes to the,

Dan: Well, he goes to sign on.

Sidey: Well, no, he does do that, but he also goes to the... it's like at Men's Club or

Dan: he

Reegs: Yeah, But all of the, like the head of the boxing promoting and Joe's there and

Dan: he needs 48 bucks to turn back on the electric which means that he can have the kids back at home because it's just too cold, it's snowing outside, they can't do anything without the heat, so, he signs on, he gets 26 or 29 and for him that is just a massive Kind of come down and even the the teller she says jim.

I never thought i'd see you

Sidey: the, way they do it in the film, he, he goes to the sign on, they give him the money, and then you see him on a boat.

And I thought, oh, he is just fucking left the family. Like he's fucked off to Manhattan. But it's not at all What happens? He goes Cap, literally cap in hand. Yeah. To all these promoters and

Dan: and whatever. the promoters and the, the newspaper guys and, and the people that would know him, the people that have watched him, written about him bet on him, all the rest of it, they're there.

And he's... you know, swallows his pride big time and he says, look, I don't have enough money. I wouldn't be here. Anybody who knows me knows I wouldn't be here. I've already signed on. So if you're going to try and get me on that one, I've done that already. I need another 18 to get me over the line here. And he manages to scrape it together with his mate, Joe Gold, right at the end going, well, how much more do you need?

And he sat in there like looking dapper and you're thinking, Well, he could have helped him out before now, couldn't he? You know, he looks like he's doing okay. And poor old,

Sidey: well, he literally says it, doesn't he? When because there's a little bit more doing and throwing and we get to see, is it Mike?

Reegs: Yes,

Cris: Mike is Paddy Constantine. He

Sidey: seems to have an alcohol problem and probably a gambling

Cris: a gambling

Sidey: so that sort of side plot is going on. But when Jim comes to see him about look, look, we've got a chance for one more fight. You know, the chance to say goodbye. One more fight. Someone's dropped out the last minute and you're the only bum that they're willing to chuck in

Cris: he

Sidey: And he literally says. Because he rocks up in his car and in his suit and he says, Oh, you're doing it right. And he says, well, you know, you've got to keep up appearances, which is literally all he's actually

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: We see his

Dan: we, we find that out a little bit later when may who, who gets back onto the I don't want him to box high horse again in, you're just trying to make money out of him. And she goes, knocks at his door and goes in and they've got literally a table two chairs.

And that is it.

Cris: And the teapot, Yeah.

Dan: including every, the last bits they had to get the 175. He's fronted to, to Jim so he can eat and train because the one fight he did win, he's done it on like a mouthful of like hash browns or something.

Sidey: Which he eats like a dog. Like, out of a bowl, literally like a dog. He's got

Dan: got that little glint in his eye again though, isn't he? He's got that little skip and, and jump when he's in the ring and

Cris: not only that, he wins with a left hand because the left hand has been... Yeah. Trained and because he's been overusing it to compensate for the right hand.

Reegs: Yeah. So now he's got this like big jab that he

Cris: been known for, he, he's always, his power handle is the right hand.

Now he switches it up and it's unexpected. And his left hand is what, what makes him better? And he's like a

Dan: Yeah, that's that's right. So he's he's in this big fight for 250, which basically Clears it clears his day. He ends up winning it. It goes like the full distance Nobody expects him to because this guy who's fighting is gonna be

Reegs: Griffin.

Dan: He's gonna be yeah

Sidey: like a

Reegs: he's played by, well he's played by a real fighter uh, Binkowski.

Dan: he's he's gonna be the second, you know, he's the next guy in line for a title fight

Sidey: Do you think the fight choreography was up too much?

Reegs: I liked it. It's not really meant to be particularly realistic. It's more about feeling the impact of the blows. And also you're supposed to understand Braddock's like process, which he watches his opponent and he like, he goes POV and, and like, anticipates their movements.

Cause he thinks about the fights in advance and that sort of thing. And then practice it out in the ring and watches from the tapes as well.

Cris: I think it's also in, in coordination with the times because in the twenties and thirties, the boxing stance wasn't what it, yeah, it was a

Sidey: like, on my

Cris: it was a bit of a lower guard. The fists were kind of bend

Reegs: wasn't,

Cris: upwards. Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't the, the, the stance that we have now to these days where it's a bit more, it's a bit different stance.

So I mean, obviously he's not a boxer. He's not Will Smith and Ali where. He did a lot of boxing beforehand to try to be as, as accurate as possible. This

Reegs: you feel the power of the, and the weight of the blows.

You see a lot of like contact. Yeah. So you definitely feel that. It just doesn't feel realistic like those movies. But

Sidey: he did get like, beat up quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah. In making this

Dan: he wins this fight, and then the next

Reegs: Well he's on the under.

Dan: the docks

Reegs: He's on the under. It's important though, 'cause he's, that fight is on the undercard of Max.

Fight against the incumbent world champion, and he demolishes the world champion to win the title. And it's because he's on the undercard of that, that people notice as well, that he's had this like knockout. So, you know, it's exposed to a much bigger audience.

Dan: That's right He's got some attention again, but he he knew it was only ever going to be one fight because they they just got his license back for this one because they didn't have anyone to fight Max bayer has already killed two people In his boxing career. He's an absolute monster this guy He slightly watches him for a minute just as they're they're going out But he turns up at the docks the next day and he goes well after I paid this Half of it where I got one, you know, it was 250 purse I got 123 Then there was 118 went on bills.

I had 5 left over and he goes and makes you a rich man. He goes, well, it does round here. Yeah, but can I get another shift? And he's back on. He's in the paper, isn't he? Like, you know, and everybody else who's who would have fought anybody who's been in the ring and done 15 rounds. Don't know if you guys have.

It's tough. And

Reegs: it's,

Dan: you don't want to get up early the next day, but he did it.

Reegs: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, he starts to attract some media attention. This is when he's dubbed the Cinderella

Dan: well, they, they, they still, still haven't got him

Sidey: Jim has to go and sweet talk the promoter, the big boss man

Cris: The Johnson

Dan: he, he tells him, look,

Reegs: remember who that guy is, but he's

Sidey: recognized him from a

Reegs: loads

Dan: in a million films, yeah. And he's the big, ugly promoter who just wants money. And that's then what... Gold kind of plays him on. He says, look, you can't lose. If he wins, people got this Cinderella story. You're going to get more. If he loses, he's had a good warm up and you know, your man's on.

So he convinces him that we'll give him another shot. We'll give him another title. And he says, look, you get one. I can get you another and if you get another I can probably get you another and then who knows where this ends and he starts stringing together the fights. He's getting some money

Reegs: he takes down pretty quickly, isn't it? Art Lasky is one of them, and I can't remember the other ones. These were real fights that

Cris: Yeah, yeah. And with Lasky, he goes to the decision and that's where he cracks his

Reegs: That's right, yeah.

Sidey: I assume that they choreographed the fights, you know, when you do see it, like,

Cris: I think so, yeah. I, I don't,

Reegs: there's a couple of shots in the bay fight with him that are very much like old footage and

Dan: he fights in November and then he fights again in March. So he is got this kind of window, not very much considering he's had his ribs broken and all the rest of it. To get himself back

Sidey: get himself back into shape. Yeah, there's a good bit just

Reegs: what we're all waiting for. That is the thing. He actually takes some money back to the, to the welfare state, pays back

Sidey: Yeah, you see him in the queue and you're like, Fuck it, you've done it right now, what are you doing? And he just hands over a

Reegs: him a huge wadge of

Dan: And that's it. He

Reegs: So he's like that. And they're all talking about, he's like this symbol of hope that, you know, it can be done. The American dream can be achieved again. And in this, you know,

Dan: This is it.

It's after the depression. So they've actually thought, well, look, this guy who came back from nothing is making a comeback. And they started to use his story as something that might inspire other people. And he's slowly starting to realize that May doesn't at all. She can't, she can't

Sidey: There's also been this, this subplot with Paddy Considine. We've seen him nearly beat up his wife. I've seen him like, when you tell me you're going to win, I could have had like all my money on that fight. And then he goes home one day and his wife is staying with them. Mike's gone missing. I don't really think all that stuff really worked.

Well, it didn't for me anyway. I just kind of didn't really care. He's just there for the fights. Too much for me. Emphasis, not too much, but all the emphasis is on the Cinderella man story. Really

Cris: the side story,

Sidey: guy. It was just too like, it wasn't fleshed out enough for

Cris: Well, it's also, it's also once we discover that he's in the Hoover town, which is in Central Park where people sleep in cardboard boxes to save money on rent or whatever.

We find him run over in a stampede by the horses or something like that, or by a carriage. Then he's being taken by the ambulance and then you never hear from him again. So it's a little bit of a side story, but it doesn't actually end. Yeah, I know. And, and yeah, anyway, we, we get to the, to the interview for the fight. They promote, they start promoting the fight. We get

Sidey: they show him a video of Max

Reegs: show him a video of Max Bear against previous opponents. Bear having killed two opponents in the ring.

Dan: But yeah,

Sidey: ring. Jim's

Dan: Jim's like, well, give a fuck. You're telling me what is dangerous to go in a boxing ring. Look, I've been doing this all my life. I don't mind. In fact, play it again. Play it again because he's starting to pick out weaknesses. And you think that's probably not what you'd have access to a whole lot getting watching videos of, of the opponents.

He would have just seen

Sidey: opto stats.

Dan: Yeah. So he's, he's able to get this. He has this brilliant press conference before where it, They mention you've given the money back. Why did you do that? And he says, well, we live in a great country, helps a man out. I came for a bit of a, you know, a back into the black, so I thought I'd pay back a bit of the money and Oh, brilliant.

Okay. Fantastic. And the next day then he's, he's getting ready for the, for the big fight.

Reegs: Yeah,

Sidey: Well Bear says some unkind things, kind of goading him, and

Reegs: he's really horrible to him.

Yeah. And he's like, oh yeah. He's basically like, I'll bang your misses afterwards and matter.

Dan: he's such a unit, you know, he's, he's, he's a good foot taller, and he, yeah, he's got absolute zero respect, and he says, look, I'll probably just kill you, your wife

Reegs: He says,

Dan: to come off running off with me or something,

Reegs: He says to her, you are too pretty to be a widow. it's pretty horrible.

Dan: yeah, yeah. Not very

Sidey: No, but we get to the fight.

Reegs: Yeah.

Madison Square Garden. The

Sidey: Back at the garden.

Reegs: Well, no, but it's not like that. It's absolutely the antipathy of that. It's two guys, like, you know, in the middle of like, no, like in this crappy locker room. There's no. G'ing up or fight. And when they come out, especially when he emerges, like there's no music or anything, like there's just 10, 000 people looking at you, like

Dan: looking at you, like,

Sidey: there's a stand. That's got some of his sort

Dan: cigarettes.

Anybody was cheering for anybody but him, you know, he was kind of surprised by it and we get into the fight and of course, it's it's gonna be an epic one and they

Reegs: it's, backwards and forwards. Bear is probably under an

Sidey: well, he's not expected to go past one round, is he?

Reegs: Braddock and is caught a few times quite early, and then he comes out, I think in the third and absolutely. Pounds. Yeah. Braddock maybe even knocks him down.

Dan: Yeah, well, they, they've got at one point... Right at the beginning, he says the only time Jim Braddock was seen on his feet today was when he walked from the changing rooms. And he goes, that's your front line. You know, that is your, your opening line on, on the front page tomorrow or whatever.

No problem. Of course, yeah, it goes to three, goes to four, goes to five, goes to six, goes to seven. Nobody's expecting this to have lasted this long because he's washed up. He's, he had no chance, but he's still boxing. He's still fighting.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: And yeah, he, he manages to,

Sidey: But it just, it goes, it goes on, and on, and on.

Dan: he

Reegs: it's, we get all 15

Dan: him and then he, yeah, we do.

It goes the

Reegs: there's some, there's some back and forth between Bear and Joe Gold, which is quite funny. Like during the fight. Bear talking to Paul Giamatti in his corner and, I don't know,

Dan: I don't know. Punch him or

Reegs: him or pork him, he says, I

Dan: don't know. But he's got

Reegs: Because Bear's got all these horrible, dishonorable tactics. He wipes a glove across the eye and they, you

Sidey: He two low blows Yeah, yeah Yeah,

Dan: Yeah, well he does get points taken off him and as the judges score a unanimous decision at the end,

Sidey: Well, they they draw the attention out, don't they? Because it is taking a long time to get the, the scores

Dan: the scores in. Yeah, and they say like, the only time

Reegs: Yeah. And

Sidey: they say like. The only time it takes this long is when you're getting screwed and then you're starting to panic.

My missus was fucking beside herself like, they're gonna fucking screw me.

Reegs: me?

Dan: gonna fucking

Sidey: But like neither of us

Dan: we were

Sidey: no, we like neither of us actually knew. So we were kind of watching it like, oh my God, is they going to fucking screw? Because you do get those films like coach car or other ones where

Reegs: yeah they they fall at the

Sidey: and they, they. They just just disappoint you at the end. So he didn't know if it was going to be like that but no he does and they say unanimous and you're just waiting.

Is it going to be and still

Dan: And new! Cha! That's all you hear then. And new! Because everybody knows it's Jim J Braddock. And yeah. The kids have been sent to the sister's house. Because she can't watch. The wife

Sidey: She's never watched.

Dan: never watched.

She's not interested in watching this time. But when she gets back to the sisters, everybody's listening around the radio.

Sidey: Well there's the people in church, the priest, he's a fan of the fights, he's got the congregation listening, you've

Dan: when she starts to realize then, actually, when she goes into the church, just how many people are praying for, she goes, I've come in to pray for Jim, he goes, Well, that's what this lot are doing.

And it's almost a full church. And she realizes the effect that his story is having on people beyond her and how important it is that he can be. You know, win, and he can do well. And he does get the unanimous decision. He makes it. He has come from literally nowhere.

Sidey: right, so in the fights he gets pummeled. It's like that rocky thing of, you know, just keeps, just, doesn't matter how bad a beating, he's always come out for more. Yeah. And I was expecting the text crawl thing at the end to say he fucking snuffed it like a month later with hideous brain nose.

But no, it's all like pretty vanilla. He just went home. It lost the title a year later to Joe Lewis. But then it's like, you know, they lived in that home for ages, and he had operated heavy machinery, and he did this, and he lived a

Cris: he made a bridge, he worked on some bridge

Sidey: yeah, pretty long life. Thank

Cris: in the same house and everything. Yeah,

Dan: yeah. it was, it was a nice, a nice Disney ending to the, to the story.

Whether all that happened quite as it did, because I remember, I could, I

Sidey: I think

Dan: Jim had a more of a temper on him like that and a few times I reckon he didn't just go, Oh, that's not very nice. And he probably went

Reegs: he's like, complete. There's, he hasn't got a single flaw in this movie, does. He's like, absolutely perfect. And that's,

Sidey: Well, the Max Baer thing I think is pretty awful because the,

Reegs: I strongly object to the movie's portrayal of

Sidey: the, the, the reality is that he, someone did die in a fight with him. He was absolutely devastated. He stayed with him for half an hour while the guy was on the canvas. The rest of his career earnings went to this guy's family.

Life's absolutely devastated. Another guy that he fought died, but for meningitis. So the artistic license they've used is absolutely fucking brutal.

Reegs: And they've portrayed him as this pantomime villain in this.

And one of the things that either you didn't notice or didn't want to discuss is the fact that he was Jewish and that I, he was fighting his own fight in 1930s. You know, against other things that were happening. So yeah, I strongly object to the movie's portrayal of Max bear in this.

Dan: you can't really be called Max Bear and not be a villain. Yeah. You know, there you

Sidey: they, they simplify everything down, obviously, for the purposes of making it

Dan: So they probably, yeah, made Max a little more unfriendly than he

Reegs: He's more, he needs to be a villain for the thing because, because the other guy is so perfect and it is a nice story and all that uplifting stuff. It doesn't take away from that, but I do object to the movie's portrayal of, of Bear.

Dan: But overall chris, you said this is one of your favorites

Cris: I, I, I don't, I didn't look into it.

I didn't really look into the story. I obviously didn't know about the, the, the that, and I just took it as a movie that I knew it is based, and it's the same like any other movie that is based on a real story. It'll never be the portrayal exactly how the, the actual story happened, because. It's a movie, it's not a documentary, and even with the documentary, you sometimes get things omitted or by accident or not, but I like the story.

And also I can relate to things like that because I've seen people when I was a kid that they had to move. from Bucharest from communist Romania when I was like three, four years old, that or, you know, that they had to move from the city to the village in the country and they would live off the land or to the grandparents because they couldn't afford to pay for the, for a flat in the city.

And because they got laid off from the factories, there was no more steel work or there was no more work at the railroad and they just disappeared. And you wouldn't. No, or it was one of them because we had the, like the Stasi equivalent, the Romanian ones where the dad became an activist and then you didn't see the whole family ever.

They just disappeared. Well, the neighbors from the sixth floor, yeah, they don't exist anymore and you just don't know how that happened. And, and it kind of, I do, I did see things like that and I'm not saying I was lucky in a way that we always had food on the table, but I do remember getting milk with water in it. So, to see that and also the, the whole boxing, I always, I actually cried every time I see the same that guy when he goes with a hat in his hand. To these guys and say and kind of put his hat out and says, you know me if I would, I would never come here if I would have any other option. I wasn't gonna I wasn't sobbing under the bed, but there was a tear in my because that is a powerful thing.

And I think he plays the role really well. The footage, considering the movie is 2005,

Reegs: Something like that.

Cris: The footage is, looks like it's in the 20s, in a way, the way it's filmed.

Reegs: the aesthetic is great. And they, they made poverty look way cooler than like.

Sidey: actually is. Than

Cris: Then it was, yeah, yeah.

Reegs: bag, that is a strong look that they had with

Cris: So, I really, I really enjoyed it, and again, I didn't look into the backside of the story to see

Reegs: to see how... It's got like a sort of sepia filter to a lot of the, the...

You know, it really is very nostalgic in that way.

Sidey: way. It cost 88 million. What do you reckon?

Dan: it's made

Cris: Yeah, it has to have made Did it not?

Sidey: well it's made 109, but I think with marketing whatnot, and they made a push for the Oscars.

Dunno if it broke even or not. But the fact is that it has Clint Howard in it, which therefore puts in the good Ron Howard film camp.

Reegs: Mm-Hmm. only just for me, there's a much more interesting version of this story where both bear and him can be treated respectfully and have a fight and be, you know, be shown to having their own things going on. And it doesn't have to be so sentimental and crow's character doesn't have to be quite so perfect.

So maybe I didn't love it as much as you guys.

Sidey: Maybe not.

Dan: but I did And you will too.

Sidey: Do you know how they filmed the crowd scenes? No, not with people. With 15, 000 blow up dummies. So, I just hope Howie's got them all back by

Dan: Yeah.