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This film features a impressive cast, depicting the true tale of coach Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Yorkshire teenager from Yemeni migrant parents. Known as Naseem Hamed, the youngster was coached to confront prejudice and molded into a media-friendly world champion in the late 90s. The trainer nurtured his flamboyant arrogance and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, the boxer betrayed his coach, cutting him out and turning him into a mix of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan plays the trainer; Amir El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Toby Stephens is the assertive promoter Frank Warren, who saw the potential that the coach had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie honestly misses the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial story in between is consistently flat and monotonous. It lacks nuance or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the opportunity to show any subtlety or much of what might make his character really interesting – even though he’s clearly been training and looks very plausible in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is often lumbered with utilitarian, expositional dialogue that tell you exactly what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“You started your career at seven years old …”). This is the kind of script that streaming-TV producers call “second-screen”, making sure you understand what’s unfolding while you’re watching the film but also glancing at your device. Additionally, the background music is overbearing, sometimes nearly overwhelming, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets too excited calling on the promoter in his luxurious home.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

Although the leads do their very utmost, their relationship never really ignites, and the big set-piece fight scenes are frequently anticlimactically truncated. The most important scene is surely when, goaded beyond endurance in the gym one day by Hamed as a misguided “elder”, Ingle actually proposes to step into the ring and fight him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uncomfortable. How exactly is this extremely unwise confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to defeat him? Or will he sentimentally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle tells a reporter what he’s teaching the youths from his neighborhood: to reject bias and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the groin”. It’s funny too when Hamed squirms at the silly antics the coach makes him do in the early days: posing as the “monster from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the falling out, the movie depicts this as being exacerbated by a revealing publication that the trainer is supposed to have authored (a story element evidently adapted from another source), and there is an intriguingly conceived final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that the boxer is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his passing is only referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on screen. There is interesting material here, but the punches don’t land.

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