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The movie features a impressive cast, telling the real-life story of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who mentored a brash Yorkshire teenager from Middle Eastern immigrant family. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and molded into a celebrity world champion in the late 90s. The trainer cultivated his showboating arrogance and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, Hamed turned against his coach, cutting him out and making him a blend of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan portrays Ingle; Amir El-Masry takes on the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Warren, who saw the goldmine that Ingle had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie honestly misses the fighter’s fancy footwork: the fight scenes flow well, but the crucial drama in between is repeatedly flat and monotonous. There is no nuance or light and shade in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the opportunity to show any depth or much of what might make his role really interesting – although he’s obviously been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Problems with Script and Sound

The drama is often lumbered with utilitarian, explanatory lines that inform you precisely what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“You started your boxing journey at seven years old …”). It is the sort of dialogue that digital producers call “double-screen”, ensuring you know what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also checking your device. And, the score is overpowering, at times almost overwhelming, especially in the scene where Hamed gets too excited calling on the promoter in his palatial residence.

Performances and Key Moments

While the leads do their very best, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the major fight scenes are often anticlimactically truncated. The most important scene is certainly when, provoked past his limit in the gym one day by Hamed as a delusional “elder”, the trainer actually offers to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is stunned and uncomfortable. How exactly is this extremely risky standoff going to unfold? What will be the outcome? Certainly the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some nice jabs. Brosnan gets laughs when his character tells a reporter what he’s instructing the youths from his neighborhood: to reject prejudice and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when the boxer squirms at the silly stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: posing as the “beast from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the falling out, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a revealing publication that the trainer is allegedly written (a plot point clearly modified from prior material), and there is an intriguingly imagined final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is reportedly paid to Ingle after his death is only mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is engaging content here, but the punches fail to connect.

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