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This film features a talented ensemble, depicting the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who guided a brash Sheffield teenager from Middle Eastern immigrant family. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and molded into a celebrity titleholder in the late 90s. The trainer nurtured his showboating arrogance and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, Hamed turned against his coach, cutting him out and making him a blend of John Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan portrays the trainer; El-Masry takes on the part of the prince, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Warren, who saw the potential that the coach had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie honestly lacks the fighter’s fancy footwork: the boxing sequences flow well, but the all-important story between them is consistently flat and one-note. There is no subtlety or light and shade in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity 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 drama is often lumbered with utilitarian, expositional dialogue that inform you exactly what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“You started your career at seven years old …”). It is the kind of script that digital producers call “second-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the film but also checking your device. Additionally, the background music is overbearing, sometimes almost deafening, particularly in the moment where Hamed gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While the leads do their very utmost, their relationship doesn’t quite ignites, and the big set-piece boxing moments are often anticlimactically cut short. A key moment is surely when, provoked past his limit in the gym one day by Hamed as a delusional “elder”, the trainer in fact offers to get in the ring and fight him. All present in the gym is shocked and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely risky confrontation going to play out? How precisely the ending? Certainly the champion is going to defeat him? Or will he sentimentally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some nice jabs. The actor gets laughs when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s instructing the youths from his local community: to reject prejudice and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when Hamed fidgets at the silly stunts the coach makes him do in the early days: acting like the “beast from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the rift, the film depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that the trainer is supposed to have written (a plot point evidently adapted from another source), and there is an interestingly conceived final conversation – although the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have given to Ingle after his death is only referenced in the end titles, and not shown on screen. Some interesting material here, but the punches don’t land.

The film screened at the festival and is in British and Irish theaters from 9 January.