If ever a film suffered from a poorly chosen title, it's Cinderella Man. A tough, Depression-era true-life story about a lower-class boxing underdog is the last thing that title suggests.

Boxer Jim Braddock was called the Cinderella Man by writer Damon Runyon, the populist writer whose work inspired Guys and Dolls. Braddock had other nicknames, but director Ron Howard centers on the fairy-tale aspect of Braddock's career. As the film tells it, Braddock was a rising boxer before the Great Depression but had a series of setbacks that left him working part-time on the docks and nursing a broken right hand.

The film sticks to old-fashioned screen formulas so much that it might have been made decades ago. Braddock, as played by Russell Crowe, is a preternaturally nice guy. Images of how much his children need the prize money flash through his head as he fights in the ring. At one point in the film, he has to go on welfare, so winning a fight means getting off the dole and holding his head up high again.

His wife is also goodness personified. Renée Zellweger plays Mae, an ever-faithful woman trying to keep the family together. When she and her husband are asked out to an expensive dinner, she sticks half of her steak in her purse so she can bring it home for the children.

They have a few domestic disputes, but always about what is the best thing to do for the family, like keeping their kids in an unheated apartment or placing them with relatives who are better off.

There needs to be some tension, though. One of Braddock's opponents is Max Baer, who killed an opponent — the film says two — in the ring. In real life, Baer was known for his clowning around. But in Cinderella Man, he is made into a somewhat sinister figure who taunts Braddock unprofessionally by picking on his wife, suggesting she will soon be a widow. This helps up the stakes a notch.

A little more drama is wrung out of Braddock's relationship with his manager, Joe Gould, played by the versatile Paul Giamatti. A slight exaggeration of facts makes it seem as if there is a conspiracy against Braddock. Giamatti's Gould has a couple of good scenes in which he tries to intervene on Braddock's behalf. But the biggest part of his role is reflecting the collective amazement of the crowd when Braddock stands up against much better-rated boxers in the ring.

The boxing scenes that punctuate the film are masterfully done and at times rather brutal. One of the boxers has a strong resemblance to Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, and those scenes can't help but evoke that boxing classic; however, they also remind the viewer that Raging Bull is a better film.

Director Howard stays well within the confines of the boxing genre. Cinderella Man is technically an excellent period film, but there is an overall sense that it is pulling a lot of its punches. Zellwegger and Giamatti both could have used more traits to help add some defining edges to their underdeveloped characters.

Braddock in real life was a particular hero to the Irish-American community, and is often pictured with a shamrock on his boxing trunks. One of his other nicknames was Irish Jim Braddock. Surprisingly, Howard — who directed the Irish immigration saga Far and Away — stays away from this angle in the film. Clint Eastwood's recent boxing film Million Dollar Baby succeeded by exploiting little character details and taking risks with the boxing film format. Cinderella Man has more of a generic feel, trying too hard to pitch Braddock as an inspirational everyman and adding nothing new with its 1930s poverty setting.