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The movie boasts a impressive cast, telling the real-life story of coach Brendan Ingle, who mentored a brash Sheffield teenager from Yemeni immigrant family. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the youngster was coached to confront prejudice and transformed into a media-friendly titleholder in the 1990s. The trainer cultivated his showboating arrogance and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, Hamed betrayed his coach, excluding him and making him a mix of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan portrays Ingle; El-Masry embodies the role of Hamed, and Toby Stephens is the assertive promoter Frank Warren, who recognized the potential that the coach had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the movie frankly lacks the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the all-important story in between is consistently flat and monotonous. There is no subtlety or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the opportunity to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role truly engaging – even though he’s obviously been working out and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is repeatedly lumbered with functional, expositional dialogue that inform you precisely what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your career at age seven …”). It is the kind of script that digital producers call “double-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the movie but also glancing at your phone. Additionally, the score is overbearing, sometimes almost overwhelming, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets overexcited calling on Warren in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their relationship never really ignites, and the big set-piece fight scenes are frequently anticlimactically cut short. A key moment is certainly when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a delusional “elder”, Ingle actually offers to get in the ring and box him. All present in the room is shocked and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely unwise standoff going to play out? What will be the outcome? 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 are no some good moments. Brosnan gets laughs when Ingle tells a reporter what he’s teaching the youths from his local community: to reject bias and when you meet a offender, “Hit them in the groin”. It’s funny too when Hamed squirms at the silly stunts the coach makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “monster from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the falling out, the movie shows this as being exacerbated by a tell-all book that Ingle is allegedly written (a story element evidently modified from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined final conversation – although the emotional tribute that Hamed is reportedly paid to Ingle after his passing is only mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is engaging content here, but the blows don’t land.

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