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This film features a talented cast, depicting the true tale of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Sheffield teenager from Middle Eastern migrant family. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to stand up to prejudice and molded into a celebrity titleholder in the late 90s. Ingle nurtured his flamboyant confidence and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, Hamed turned against his coach, excluding him and making him a mix of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan plays Ingle; Amir El-Masry takes on the part of the prince, and Stephens is the assertive London promoter Warren, who recognized the potential that the coach had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie honestly lacks the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes flow well, but the crucial drama in between is consistently dull and one-note. It lacks subtlety or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, isn’t given the chance to show any subtlety or much of what might make his character really interesting – although he’s obviously been training and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is repeatedly lumbered with utilitarian, explanatory lines that inform you precisely what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“You started your career at seven years old …”). It is the sort of dialogue that streaming-TV producers call “double-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re watching the movie but also checking your device. And, the score is overpowering, at times almost overwhelming, particularly in the moment where Hamed gets overexcited calling on Warren in his luxurious home.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their very best, their dynamic doesn’t quite ignites, and the major fight scenes are often anticlimactically truncated. The most important moment is certainly when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a misguided “old man”, Ingle in fact proposes to step into the ring and fight him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uncomfortable. In what way is this insanely unwise confrontation going to play out? What will be the outcome? Surely the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he sentimentally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there are no some nice jabs. Brosnan gets laughs when his character informs a reporter what he’s instructing the youths from his local community: to oppose bias and when you encounter a offender, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer squirms at the silly stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: acting like the “monster from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the rift, the film depicts this as being worsened by a revealing publication that Ingle is allegedly authored (a story element evidently adapted from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his death is merely referenced in the closing credits, and not shown on screen. There is engaging content in this film, but the blows fail to connect.

Giant screened at the London film festival and is in British and Irish cinemas from 9 January.