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This film boasts a impressive ensemble, telling the true story of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Yorkshire teenager from Middle Eastern migrant parents. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and molded into a celebrity world champion in the late 90s. Ingle nurtured his flamboyant confidence and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, the boxer betrayed his mentor, cutting him out and turning him into a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

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

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the movie frankly misses the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences flow well, but the all-important story in between is consistently flat and one-note. It lacks nuance or light and shade in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the chance to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role truly engaging – although he’s obviously been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is repeatedly lumbered with functional, explanatory dialogue that tell you exactly what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your career at seven years old …”). It is the sort of script that digital executives call “second-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the movie but also checking your device. And, the background music is overpowering, sometimes nearly overwhelming, especially in the moment where the boxer gets too excited calling on Warren in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their dynamic doesn’t quite ignites, and the big set-piece fight scenes are frequently disappointingly truncated. A key moment is surely when, goaded past his limit in the gym one day by the boxer as a misguided “old man”, Ingle actually proposes to step into the ring and fight him. All present in the gym is shocked and uncomfortable. How exactly is this extremely risky standoff going to unfold? How precisely the outcome? Certainly the Prince is going to kill him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there are no some nice jabs. The actor gets laughs when Ingle tells a journalist what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to reject bias and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the groin”. It’s funny too when the boxer squirms at the silly stunts the coach makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “beast from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the falling out, the film depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that the trainer is supposed to have authored (a story element evidently adapted from another source), and there is an intriguingly imagined final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have 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.

The film was shown at the London film festival and is available in UK and Irish theaters from 9 January.