Forget Cinderella Man. Cobb is the definitive famous athlete bio pic. Yes, it isn’t perfect. It suffers from a few trite tropes: an every man learning life lessons by being paired with a famous &/or old person and a hate to love friendship between two men, i.e. the buddy film, BUT I am willing to sign a waiver because Cobb is largely about Cobb. Though it can be inspirational, it is also unflinching and unsentimental. “I’m not myself.” “Who is?” Cobb unrelentingly uncovers ugly reality and pairs it with the idealized image. While there is a fair amount of armchair psychology regarding what made Cobb become a magnificent bastard, Cobb the film does not apologize or excuse his bad behavior. Given the right circumstances, the movie repeatedly suggests that he could be/was a murderer and rapist. I loved that it didn’t paint by numbers and just recreate his great moments. Instead it focused on Cobb as a human being-an awful person and genius deserving of condemnation and love. The film manages to focus on Cobb without overshadowing tertiary characters’ full humanity and character development. Tommy Lee Jones, Lou Myers (best known as Mr. Gaines on A Different World) and Lolita Davidovich do some magnificent work in Cobb. Poor Robert Wuhl was probably the weakest part. I think that I’ve seen this film, and it was worth the second viewing.