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The movie boasts a impressive ensemble, telling the true tale of coach Brendan Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Sheffield youth from Middle Eastern migrant family. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront racist bullies and molded into a media-friendly world champion in the late 90s. Ingle nurtured his flamboyant arrogance and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, Hamed betrayed his coach, excluding him and turning him into a mix of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan portrays the trainer; El-Masry takes on the role of Hamed, and Stephens is the bullish London promoter Warren, who saw the goldmine that Ingle had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the film honestly misses the Prince’s agility: the fight scenes flow well, but the all-important drama in between is consistently flat and one-note. It lacks nuance 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 truly engaging – even though he’s obviously been training and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is repeatedly lumbered with functional, expositional dialogue that tell you exactly what is happening and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). It is the sort of script that streaming-TV executives call “double-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re watching the movie but also checking your phone. Additionally, the score is overbearing, at times almost overwhelming, particularly in the moment where the boxer gets too excited calling on the promoter in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their dynamic never really comes to life, and the big set-piece boxing moments are often anticlimactically truncated. The most important moment is surely when, provoked past his limit in the training facility one day by the boxer as a delusional “old man”, the trainer in fact proposes to get in the ring and box him. All present in the gym is shocked and uncomfortable. In what way is this insanely risky standoff going to play out? What will be the ending? Surely the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he sentimentally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there are no some nice jabs. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle tells a journalist what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to reject bias and when you meet a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when Hamed squirms at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: posing as the “beast from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the falling out, the film shows this as being worsened by a tell-all book that Ingle is supposed to have written (a story element evidently modified from prior material), and there is an intriguingly imagined last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his death is merely mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is engaging content in this film, but the blows don’t land.

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