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This film features a talented ensemble, depicting the real-life story of coach Brendan Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Sheffield youth from Middle Eastern immigrant parents. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to stand up to prejudice and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the late 90s. The trainer cultivated his flamboyant arrogance and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, Hamed betrayed his coach, excluding him and making him a blend of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan plays the trainer; El-Masry takes on the role of Hamed, and Toby Stephens is the assertive promoter Warren, who recognized the potential that Ingle had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the film frankly misses the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes flow well, but the all-important drama in between is consistently flat and one-note. There is no nuance or light and shade in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, isn’t given the opportunity to display any depth or much of what might make his role really interesting – even though he’s clearly been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is repeatedly lumbered with utilitarian, explanatory lines that inform you exactly what is happening 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 going on while you’re viewing the movie but also checking your phone. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, at times almost deafening, especially in the moment where Hamed gets too excited calling on Warren in his luxurious home.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While the leads do their very best, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are frequently anticlimactically truncated. A key scene is certainly when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a misguided “old man”, the trainer actually proposes to step into the ring and box him. All present in the gym is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this insanely risky standoff going to play out? How precisely the outcome? Certainly the champion is going to kill him? Alternatively will he emotionally pull his punches? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there aren’t some good moments. The actor elicits humor when Ingle tells a reporter what he’s instructing the youths from his neighborhood: to reject bias and when you encounter a offender, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “beast from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

Regarding the falling out, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a revealing publication that Ingle is supposed to have written (a plot point evidently adapted from prior material), and there is an intriguingly imagined last discussion – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is reportedly paid to his mentor after his passing is only referenced in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is interesting material here, but the blows don’t land.

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