🔗 Share this article

The movie features a impressive cast, telling the true story of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Yorkshire teenager from Yemeni migrant family. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. Ingle nurtured his showboating arrogance and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, the boxer turned against his mentor, cutting him out and turning him into a mix of John Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan plays Ingle; El-Masry takes on the role of Hamed, and Toby Stephens appears as the assertive promoter Frank Warren, who saw the goldmine that Ingle had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the movie frankly lacks the Prince’s agility: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the all-important story in between is consistently flat and one-note. There is no nuance or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the chance to show any depth or much of what might make his character truly engaging – even though he’s obviously been working out and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The drama is often lumbered with functional, expositional lines that inform you exactly what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“You started your boxing journey at seven years old …”). It is the sort of script that streaming-TV producers call “second-screen”, making sure you understand what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the film but also checking your device. Additionally, the score is overpowering, sometimes nearly deafening, particularly in the moment where the boxer gets too excited visiting Warren in his palatial home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although the leads do their considerable utmost, their dynamic never really comes to life, and the major boxing moments are often anticlimactically cut short. A key moment is surely when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a delusional “elder”, the trainer actually offers to get in the ring and box him. All present in the room is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely risky standoff going to play out? What will be the outcome? Certainly the Prince is going to kill him? Alternatively 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. Brosnan gets laughs when his character tells a journalist what he’s teaching the youths from his neighborhood: to reject prejudice and when you encounter a paedophile, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when Hamed fidgets at the ridiculous antics Ingle makes him do in the early days: posing as the “beast from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

Regarding the falling out, the film shows this as being exacerbated by a revealing book that Ingle is supposed to have authored (a story element evidently adapted from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that the boxer is reportedly paid to Ingle after his death is only referenced in the end titles, and not shown on screen. There is interesting material in this film, but the punches fail to connect.

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