🔗 Share this article

The movie boasts a impressive ensemble, depicting the real-life story of coach Ingle, who guided a brash Sheffield teenager from Middle Eastern immigrant family. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the youngster was coached to stand up to prejudice and transformed into a media-friendly world champion in the 1990s. Ingle nurtured his showboating confidence and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, the boxer turned against his coach, excluding him and turning him into a blend of John Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Pierce Brosnan plays the trainer; El-Masry embodies the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens is the bullish London promoter Warren, who saw the potential that Ingle had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the film frankly lacks the Prince’s agility: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the all-important story in between is repeatedly dull and one-note. It lacks subtlety or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, isn’t given the opportunity to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role truly engaging – although he’s clearly been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is repeatedly lumbered with utilitarian, expositional dialogue that inform you precisely what is happening and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). This is the sort of dialogue that digital producers call “second-screen”, making sure you understand what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also glancing at your phone. And, the score is overpowering, at times almost deafening, particularly in the moment where Hamed gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his palatial residence.

Performances and Key Moments

While the leads do their considerable utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite ignites, and the big set-piece fight scenes are frequently anticlimactically truncated. A key scene is certainly when, goaded beyond endurance in the gym one day by Hamed as a delusional “old man”, the trainer in fact proposes to step into the ring and box him. All present in the room is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this insanely risky standoff going to play out? What will be the outcome? Certainly the champion is going to defeat him? Or will he sentimentally hold back? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there are no some good moments. Brosnan gets laughs when Ingle informs a reporter what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose prejudice and when you encounter a paedophile, “Hit them in the groin”. Amusing too when Hamed squirms at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “monster from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the falling out, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a tell-all book that the trainer is allegedly written (a story element clearly adapted from prior material), and there is an intriguingly imagined final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that the boxer is reportedly given to Ingle after his passing is only mentioned in the end titles, and not shown on film. There is engaging content in this film, but the blows fail to connect.

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