🔗 Share this article

This film boasts a talented ensemble, telling the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who guided a cheeky Sheffield youth from Yemeni immigrant family. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to confront racist bullies and molded into a media-friendly titleholder in the late 90s. The trainer nurtured his showboating confidence and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, Hamed turned against his coach, excluding him and turning him into a blend of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan plays the trainer; El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Stephens appears as the bullish promoter Warren, who recognized the potential that Ingle had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the movie honestly lacks the fighter’s agility: the boxing sequences flow well, but the crucial story in between is consistently dull and monotonous. It lacks nuance or light and shade in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, isn’t given the opportunity to show any depth or much of what might make his role truly engaging – although he’s obviously been training and looks very plausible in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is often burdened by utilitarian, expositional dialogue that tell you precisely what is happening and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your career at age seven …”). It is the kind of dialogue that digital executives call “second-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the movie but also glancing at your phone. Additionally, the background music is overbearing, at times almost overwhelming, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets too excited visiting Warren in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very best, their relationship doesn’t quite comes to life, and the major fight scenes are often anticlimactically cut short. The most important moment is certainly when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a misguided “elder”, Ingle actually offers to get in the ring and fight him. All present in the gym is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely unwise standoff going to unfold? What will be the outcome? Certainly the Prince is going to kill him? Or will he emotionally pull his punches? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there aren’t some nice jabs. The actor gets laughs when his character informs a journalist what he’s instructing the youths from his neighborhood: to reject bias and when you meet a paedophile, “Hit them in the groin”. It’s funny too when Hamed squirms at the silly stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: acting like the “monster from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

Regarding the falling out, the movie shows this as being exacerbated by a revealing book that Ingle is supposed to have written (a plot point evidently modified from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is reportedly paid to Ingle after his death is merely mentioned in the closing credits, and not shown on film. Some engaging content here, but the blows fail to connect.

Giant screened at the London film festival and is available in British and Irish theaters from January 9.