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This film boasts a impressive ensemble, telling the true story of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who mentored a brash Yorkshire youth from Yemeni migrant family. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to stand up to racist bullies and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. The trainer nurtured his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, Hamed betrayed his coach, excluding him and making him a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan portrays the trainer; El-Masry takes on the part of Hamed, and Toby Stephens is the assertive London promoter Frank Warren, who recognized the potential that the coach had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the film honestly lacks the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes flow well, but the crucial story in between is repeatedly dull and one-note. It lacks subtlety or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the chance to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – even though he’s clearly been working out and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is often lumbered with utilitarian, explanatory lines that inform you precisely what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“You started your career at age seven …”). This is the kind of script that streaming-TV executives call “double-screen”, making sure you understand what’s going on while you’re watching the film but also glancing at your phone. Additionally, the score is overbearing, at times almost overwhelming, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets too excited visiting Warren in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their dynamic never really comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are often disappointingly truncated. A key scene is certainly when, provoked past his limit in the gym one day by Hamed as a misguided “elder”, Ingle actually proposes to step into the ring and box him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uncomfortable. How exactly is this extremely unwise confrontation going to play out? What will be the ending? Certainly the Prince is going to defeat him? Or will he sentimentally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. The actor elicits humor when Ingle informs a reporter what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose prejudice and when you meet a offender, “Punch him in the groin”. Amusing too when the boxer squirms at the silly antics the coach makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “monster from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the rift, the film shows this as being exacerbated by a tell-all book that Ingle is allegedly written (a story element evidently modified from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – although the emotional tribute that the boxer is reportedly given to his mentor after his death is only mentioned in the closing credits, and not shown on film. There is engaging content here, but the blows fail to connect.

Giant screened at the festival and is in UK and Irish cinemas from 9 January.