🔗 Share this article

This film features a impressive cast, telling the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who guided a brash Yorkshire teenager from Middle Eastern migrant family. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to confront racist bullies and transformed into a media-friendly world champion in the late 90s. Ingle cultivated his showboating arrogance and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, the boxer betrayed his mentor, excluding him and making him a mix of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan portrays the trainer; Amir El-Masry embodies the part of Hamed, and Stephens is the assertive promoter Frank Warren, who saw the goldmine that Ingle had discovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

Yet, the movie honestly misses the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes flow well, but the crucial story in between is consistently flat and one-note. There is no subtlety or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and the actor, 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 training and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The drama is often burdened by 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 kind of dialogue that streaming-TV executives call “second-screen”, making sure you know what’s going on while you’re viewing the movie but also checking your device. Additionally, the score is overpowering, sometimes almost deafening, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited calling on Warren in his luxurious residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the major fight scenes are often anticlimactically truncated. A key moment is surely when, provoked past his limit in the training facility one day by Hamed as a delusional “old man”, Ingle actually proposes to step into the ring and box him. Everyone in the gym is shocked and uneasy. In what way is this insanely risky confrontation going to play out? How precisely the ending? Certainly the champion is going to defeat him? Or will he emotionally pull his punches? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some nice jabs. The actor elicits humor when Ingle tells a journalist what he’s teaching the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose prejudice and when you meet a paedophile, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when Hamed squirms at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: acting like the “monster from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the falling out, the movie shows this as being exacerbated by a revealing book that the trainer is supposed to have written (a plot point clearly modified from another source), and there is an interestingly conceived last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have given to his mentor after his death is only referenced in the closing credits, and not shown on screen. There is engaging content in this film, but the punches don’t land.

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