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This film features a talented ensemble, telling the real-life story of coach Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Yorkshire teenager from Middle Eastern immigrant family. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to confront prejudice and transformed into a media-friendly world champion in the late 90s. Ingle nurtured his flamboyant arrogance and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, the boxer betrayed his mentor, excluding him and turning him into a mix of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan plays the trainer; El-Masry takes on the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens appears as the assertive London promoter Frank Warren, who recognized the potential that the coach had discovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

Yet, the film honestly lacks the fighter’s fancy footwork: the boxing sequences flow well, but the crucial story in between is consistently dull and one-note. There is no nuance or light and shade in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, 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 appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is often burdened by utilitarian, explanatory dialogue that inform you precisely what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“You started your boxing journey at seven years old …”). This is the kind of dialogue that streaming-TV producers call “second-screen”, making sure you know what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also checking your device. And, the score is overbearing, sometimes nearly deafening, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets too excited calling on the promoter in his palatial residence.

Performances and Key Moments

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their very best, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are frequently anticlimactically truncated. A key scene is certainly when, provoked beyond endurance in the gym one day by the boxer as a delusional “old man”, the trainer in fact proposes to step into the ring and fight him. All present in the gym is stunned and uneasy. In what way is this insanely unwise standoff going to play out? What will be the ending? Certainly the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. The actor elicits humor when his character tells a reporter what he’s instructing the kids from his local community: to reject bias and when you encounter a paedophile, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer squirms at the ridiculous antics 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 worsened by a tell-all publication that the trainer is allegedly written (a plot point clearly adapted from prior material), and there is an interestingly conceived last discussion – however the emotional tribute that the boxer is reportedly paid to Ingle after his death is merely referenced in the end titles, and not dramatised on screen. There is engaging content here, but the punches don’t land.

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