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This film boasts a impressive ensemble, telling the true story of coach Brendan Ingle, who mentored a brash Yorkshire teenager from Middle Eastern immigrant family. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to confront prejudice and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the late 90s. The trainer cultivated his flamboyant confidence and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, the boxer turned against his mentor, excluding him and making him a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Pierce Brosnan portrays the trainer; Amir El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Stephens is the bullish promoter Frank Warren, who recognized the goldmine that the coach had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the film honestly lacks the fighter’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the all-important story in between is consistently flat and monotonous. There is no subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity to display any depth or much of what might make his role truly engaging – even though he’s clearly been training and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The drama is often lumbered with functional, expositional lines that inform you exactly what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“You started your career at seven years old …”). It is the sort of script that streaming-TV producers call “second-screen”, making sure you know what’s going on while you’re viewing the movie but also checking your device. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, at times almost deafening, especially in the scene where Hamed gets too excited calling on Warren in his luxurious residence.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite ignites, and the major fight scenes are often disappointingly truncated. A key moment is certainly when, provoked beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a delusional “old man”, Ingle actually proposes to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uncomfortable. How exactly is this insanely risky confrontation going to play out? What will be the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there are no some good moments. Brosnan gets laughs when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose bias and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the silly antics the coach makes him do in the early days: acting like the “beast from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the falling out, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a revealing publication that the trainer is supposed to have authored (a plot point clearly modified from another source), and there is an intriguingly imagined final conversation – although the heartfelt homage that the boxer is reportedly paid to his mentor after his passing is merely referenced in the end titles, and not shown on screen. There is interesting material in this film, but the blows don’t land.

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