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This film features a impressive cast, telling the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who guided a brash Yorkshire teenager from Yemeni immigrant parents. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to confront prejudice and molded into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. Ingle cultivated his showboating confidence and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, Hamed turned against 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 part of Hamed, and Stephens is the bullish London promoter Warren, who saw the goldmine that the coach had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the movie frankly misses the fighter’s fancy footwork: the boxing sequences flow well, but the all-important story between them is consistently flat and monotonous. It lacks subtlety or light and shade in the portrayal of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the opportunity to display any depth or much of what might make his role truly engaging – although he’s clearly been working out and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is often burdened by utilitarian, 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 digital producers call “second-screen”, making sure you know what’s unfolding while you’re watching the movie but also glancing at your device. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, at times nearly overwhelming, especially in the moment where Hamed gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite ignites, and the major fight scenes are frequently anticlimactically truncated. The most important scene is certainly when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a misguided “old man”, the trainer actually offers to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this insanely risky confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the outcome? Surely the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he emotionally pull his punches? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there are no some good moments. The actor elicits humor when Ingle tells a journalist what he’s instructing the kids from his local community: to oppose bias and when you encounter a paedophile, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when the boxer fidgets at the ridiculous stunts the coach makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “monster from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the rift, the film depicts this as being worsened by a tell-all book that the trainer is allegedly written (a plot point evidently adapted from another source), and there is an intriguingly conceived last discussion – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have given to Ingle after his death is only mentioned in the closing credits, and not shown on screen. Some interesting material here, but the punches don’t land.

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