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The movie boasts a talented ensemble, depicting the real-life tale of coach Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Sheffield youth from Middle Eastern migrant family. Known as Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to stand up to prejudice and transformed into a media-friendly world champion in the 1990s. The trainer cultivated his flamboyant confidence and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, the boxer betrayed his mentor, cutting him out and making him a mix of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan plays Ingle; El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish promoter Warren, who saw the goldmine that Ingle had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

Yet, the film frankly misses the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the all-important drama in between is repeatedly flat and one-note. It lacks nuance or light and shade in the portrayal of the protagonist himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the opportunity to display any subtlety or much of what might make his character truly engaging – even though he’s clearly been working out and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is repeatedly burdened by functional, explanatory dialogue that tell you exactly what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“You started your career at seven years old …”). It is the kind of dialogue that digital producers call “double-screen”, making sure you know what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also glancing at your phone. Additionally, the background music is overbearing, sometimes almost overwhelming, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets too excited visiting Warren in his luxurious residence.

Performances and Key Moments

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their relationship never really ignites, and the major boxing moments are often anticlimactically truncated. The most important moment is surely when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a misguided “elder”, Ingle in fact proposes to get in the ring and box him. All present in the gym is shocked and uncomfortable. How exactly is this insanely unwise standoff going to play out? How precisely the outcome? Certainly the Prince is going to kill 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 his character informs a journalist what he’s teaching the youths from his neighborhood: to reject bias and when you meet a paedophile, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when Hamed squirms at the silly stunts the coach makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “beast from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the rift, the movie depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that the trainer is allegedly written (a story element clearly adapted from another source), and there is an intriguingly imagined last discussion – although the emotional tribute that the boxer is supposed to have paid to Ingle after his death is merely referenced in the closing credits, and not shown on screen. Some engaging content here, but the punches don’t land.

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