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This film features a impressive ensemble, telling the true story of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Yorkshire youth from Middle Eastern migrant parents. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and transformed into a media-friendly titleholder in the late 90s. The trainer nurtured his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, Hamed betrayed his mentor, cutting him out and turning him into a mix of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan plays the trainer; Amir El-Masry embodies the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Frank Warren, who saw the goldmine that the coach had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the movie frankly misses the Prince’s fancy footwork: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the all-important drama in between is repeatedly dull and one-note. It lacks nuance or light and shade in the portrayal of the protagonist himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity to show any subtlety or much of what might make his character really interesting – even though he’s obviously been working out and appears convincing in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is often burdened by utilitarian, expositional lines that inform you exactly what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your career at age seven …”). It is the sort of script that streaming-TV producers call “second-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the movie but also glancing at your device. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, sometimes almost deafening, especially in the moment where the boxer gets too excited visiting Warren in his palatial residence.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their relationship never really comes to life, and the major boxing moments are often disappointingly cut short. A key scene is certainly when, goaded past his limit in the gym one day by the boxer as a misguided “old man”, Ingle in fact offers to step into the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is stunned and uncomfortable. In what way is this extremely unwise standoff going to unfold? How precisely the ending? Certainly the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there aren’t some good moments. Brosnan elicits humor when his character informs a journalist what he’s instructing the youths from his local community: to reject prejudice and when you meet a offender, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the silly stunts Ingle makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “beast from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the rift, the movie shows this as being worsened by a revealing publication that the trainer is supposed to have authored (a story element evidently modified from prior material), and there is an interestingly conceived final conversation – although the heartfelt homage that the boxer is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his passing is merely referenced in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. Some interesting material here, but the blows don’t land.

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