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This film boasts a impressive ensemble, depicting the true story of coach Brendan Ingle, who guided a brash Sheffield youth from Middle Eastern migrant parents. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to stand up to prejudice and transformed into a media-friendly world champion in the late 90s. The trainer cultivated his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, Hamed turned against his mentor, excluding him and turning him into a blend of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan portrays Ingle; Amir El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Stephens is the assertive promoter Warren, who recognized the potential that the coach had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the movie frankly lacks the fighter’s agility: the boxing sequences flow well, but the all-important drama between them is repeatedly flat and one-note. There is no subtlety or contrast in the portrayal of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the chance to show any depth or much of what might make his role really interesting – even though he’s obviously been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is often burdened by functional, expositional dialogue that tell you exactly what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). It is the sort of script that streaming-TV producers call “double-screen”, making sure you understand what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also checking your phone. Additionally, the background music is overbearing, sometimes nearly deafening, particularly in the moment where the boxer gets too excited calling on Warren in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

Although the leads do their very utmost, their relationship doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are often anticlimactically cut short. The most important moment is surely when, goaded past his limit in the training facility one day by Hamed as a delusional “elder”, Ingle in fact offers to get in the ring and box him. Everyone in the gym is shocked and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely risky confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the outcome? Surely the champion is going to kill him? Or will he sentimentally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. The actor elicits humor when his character tells a reporter what he’s instructing the youths from his local community: to reject bias and when you meet a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when Hamed fidgets at the ridiculous antics Ingle makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “monster from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the falling out, the film shows this as being exacerbated by a revealing publication that the trainer is allegedly written (a plot point evidently adapted from another source), and there is an interestingly conceived last discussion – however the emotional tribute that the boxer is reportedly given to Ingle after his death is merely referenced in the closing credits, and not shown on screen. Some interesting material here, but the blows fail to connect.

The film screened at the festival and is in UK and Irish cinemas from January 9.