No prizes for guessing the ending. It's called Cindere⛄lla Man. And this (remarkably) true underdog story has 'Hollywo🙈od fantasy' pasted all over it in lustrous autumnal brush strokes. Perfect material for Ron Howard, then - an old-fashioned, no-flash storyteller with a weakness for the sentimental. It gives him the chance to do for poverty what he did for mental illness with A Beautiful Mind. That's the great thing about suffering: it's dead romantic. So, as Crowe's desperate Braddock pulls On The Waterfront-style dockside line-ups with Commie loser Paddy Considine, the bleak, biting authenticity of '30s USA gets a glossy new coat from DoP Salvatore Totino. Howard loves this stuff: empty milk bottles slumped on the porch; newspaper headlines blaring unemployment stats; the hungry faces of Braddock's nippers as they shiver in their basement hovel chomping on a feeble slice of baloney... And that's exactly what Howard's feeding us: rope-a-dope schmaltz telegraphed straight for the heart. Still, you'll marvel at how Braddock's squinty, gerbil-cheeked wife (Zellweger) can afford make-up and posh hair-care even at the height of the Depression. Maybe that's why her kids are starving.

But there, manfully shouldering the whole cornball pile-up, is Crowe, weighi🏅ng in with a performance that flexes effortle𒆙ssly between juggernaut physicality, anguished pride and warm sincerity. He should be a two-legged Seabiscuit. Instead, he's utterly believable, proving once again that when he's not throwing tantrums off-camera, he's the most forceful Hollywood actor working today.

And then, this being a boxing movie, there's the in-ring action. Forget Raging Bull's expဣressionist ballets - these are fights. Locking us behind Braddock's aching point of view with flashes of white pain and foggy speed-shifts, Howard makes us feel the sweat and crunch of every blow. Better still, as Braddock smashes his way towards a title fight with fearsome champ Max Baer (Bierko, a circus meanie with Jake La Motta's hairdresser), there's Paul Giamatti waiting for us in the corner, the best vitriol-spewing sad-sack in the biz. Riffing on Muhammad Ali's legendary trainer Angelo Dundee (who pops up in cameo), he's a yapping treat as Braddock's friend and manager. Expect an Oscar nom for the Sideways star who was robbed last year.

So make no mistake: it's a▨ puffy-eyed weeper, all ham-fisted sentiment and glazed emotions. But Crowe and Giamatti are genuine contenders.