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This film features a impressive cast, depicting the true story of coach Brendan Ingle, who guided a brash Yorkshire youth from Middle Eastern migrant parents. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to confront racist bullies and transformed into a celebrity titleholder in the 1990s. The trainer nurtured his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, the boxer turned against his mentor, excluding him and turning him into a mix of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan plays Ingle; Amir El-Masry takes on the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Warren, who saw the goldmine that the coach had discovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the movie frankly misses the Prince’s fancy footwork: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the all-important story in between is consistently dull and one-note. There is no nuance or contrast in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity to display any subtlety or much of what might make his character really interesting – even though he’s obviously been training and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is often lumbered with functional, expositional dialogue that tell you precisely what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“You started your career at age seven …”). It is the sort of script that digital producers call “double-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the film but also checking your phone. Additionally, the score is overbearing, sometimes almost deafening, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets too excited calling on Warren in his palatial home.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their very best, their relationship never really comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are often anticlimactically truncated. A key moment is surely when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a delusional “old man”, Ingle in fact offers to step into the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is shocked and uncomfortable. How exactly is this insanely unwise confrontation going to play out? What will be the outcome? Certainly the Prince is going to defeat him? Or will he emotionally hold back? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

That’s not to say that there aren’t some nice jabs. The actor elicits humor when his character informs a reporter what he’s teaching the kids from his local community: to reject prejudice and when you meet a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. Amusing too when Hamed fidgets at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “monster from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

Regarding the falling out, the film depicts this as being worsened by a revealing book that Ingle is allegedly authored (a plot point evidently modified from prior material), and there is an interestingly conceived last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his passing is only referenced in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. Some interesting material here, but the punches don’t land.

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