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The movie boasts a talented ensemble, telling the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who mentored a brash Yorkshire youth from Yemeni immigrant family. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to stand up to racist bullies and molded into a celebrity titleholder in the 1990s. Ingle cultivated his showboating arrogance and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, Hamed betrayed his mentor, excluding him and making him a mix of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan portrays Ingle; El-Masry embodies the role of Hamed, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish promoter Frank Warren, who saw the goldmine that the coach had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the movie frankly misses the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the crucial story between them is repeatedly flat and one-note. There is no nuance or light and shade in the depiction of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the chance to display any depth or much of what might make his role really interesting – although he’s clearly been training and looks very plausible in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is repeatedly lumbered with functional, explanatory lines that inform you precisely what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your career at seven years old …”). It is the sort of dialogue that streaming-TV executives call “double-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s unfolding while you’re watching the movie but also checking your device. And, the background music is overbearing, at times nearly overwhelming, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their dynamic never really ignites, and the major boxing moments are often anticlimactically cut short. The most important moment is certainly when, provoked beyond endurance in the gym one day by the boxer as a delusional “old man”, the trainer in fact offers to get in the ring and box him. All present in the gym is shocked and uneasy. In what way is this insanely risky confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the ending? Surely the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he sentimentally hold back? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

That’s not to say that there aren’t some nice jabs. The actor elicits humor when his character informs a journalist what he’s teaching the youths from his neighborhood: to oppose bias and when you encounter a paedophile, “Hit them in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when the boxer fidgets at the ridiculous antics the coach makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “beast from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the rift, the film shows this as being worsened by a revealing book that Ingle is supposed to have authored (a plot point evidently adapted from prior material), and there is an interestingly conceived last discussion – although the emotional tribute that the boxer is reportedly given to Ingle after his passing is merely mentioned in the closing credits, and not dramatised on screen. Some interesting material in this film, but the punches don’t land.

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