🔗 Share this article

The movie features a impressive cast, telling the true story of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who mentored a brash Yorkshire teenager from Yemeni migrant family. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to confront prejudice and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. Ingle cultivated his showboating arrogance and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, the boxer turned against his coach, excluding him and turning him into a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan portrays Ingle; El-Masry takes on the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens is the assertive London promoter Warren, who recognized the potential that Ingle had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the film honestly misses the fighter’s fancy footwork: the fight scenes flow well, but the crucial drama between them is repeatedly flat and monotonous. There is no subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the chance to show any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – although he’s obviously been training and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is often burdened by functional, expositional dialogue that tell you precisely what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). This is the sort of dialogue that digital executives call “second-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also checking your phone. Additionally, the background music is overbearing, at times nearly overwhelming, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited visiting Warren in his palatial home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very best, their relationship never really ignites, and the big set-piece boxing moments are frequently anticlimactically cut short. A key scene is surely when, goaded past his limit in the gym one day by Hamed as a delusional “elder”, the trainer in fact proposes to step into the ring and box him. All present in the room is shocked and uncomfortable. In what way is this insanely unwise confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the ending? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Or will he emotionally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some nice jabs. Brosnan gets laughs when Ingle tells a reporter what he’s teaching the youths from his local community: to oppose bias and when you encounter a paedophile, “Punch him in the bollocks”. Amusing too when Hamed squirms at the silly stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: acting like the “monster from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the falling out, the movie shows this as being exacerbated by a revealing publication that Ingle is supposed to have authored (a story element clearly modified from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that the boxer is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his passing is merely mentioned in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. There is engaging content in this film, but the punches fail to connect.

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