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The movie features a talented cast, telling the real-life tale of coach Brendan Ingle, who guided a brash Yorkshire youth from Middle Eastern immigrant parents. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to stand up to racist bullies and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the late 90s. The trainer nurtured his flamboyant arrogance and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, the boxer turned against his coach, excluding him and making him a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan portrays the trainer; Amir El-Masry takes on the role of Hamed, and Stephens is the bullish London promoter Frank Warren, who recognized the potential that Ingle had discovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

Yet, the film frankly lacks the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial story in between is consistently flat and one-note. It lacks nuance or contrast in the depiction of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the opportunity to show any depth or much of what might make his role truly engaging – although he’s obviously been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Problems with Script and Sound

The drama is often burdened by utilitarian, explanatory dialogue that tell you exactly what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). It is the sort of script that streaming-TV executives call “double-screen”, ensuring you know what’s going on while you’re viewing the movie but also checking your device. And, the score is overpowering, at times nearly overwhelming, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets too excited visiting the promoter in his luxurious residence.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their relationship never really ignites, and the major fight scenes are frequently anticlimactically cut short. The most important moment is surely when, provoked past his limit in the training facility one day by the boxer as a misguided “elder”, the trainer actually proposes to get in the ring and box him. All present in the gym is stunned and uncomfortable. How exactly is this insanely risky confrontation going to play out? How precisely the outcome? Surely the champion is going to defeat him? Or will he emotionally pull his punches? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there are no some good moments. The actor elicits humor when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s teaching the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose bias and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when Hamed fidgets at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “monster from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the rift, the film depicts this as being worsened by a tell-all book that the trainer is allegedly written (a story element evidently modified from another source), and there is an intriguingly imagined final conversation – although the heartfelt homage that the boxer is reportedly given to Ingle after his death is only mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on screen. Some interesting material in this film, but the blows fail to connect.

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