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This film features a talented ensemble, depicting the true tale of coach Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Sheffield teenager from Yemeni migrant family. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to stand up to prejudice and transformed into a celebrity titleholder in the late 90s. The trainer cultivated his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, the boxer betrayed his mentor, excluding him and making him a mix of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan plays Ingle; Amir El-Masry takes on the role of the prince, and Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Warren, who recognized the potential that Ingle had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

Yet, the movie honestly misses the fighter’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial story between them is consistently dull and one-note. It lacks nuance or contrast in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, isn’t given the opportunity to show any depth or much of what might make his character really interesting – even though he’s obviously been training and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is often burdened by utilitarian, expositional dialogue 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 kind of script that digital executives call “double-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the movie but also checking your phone. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, sometimes almost deafening, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets overexcited visiting Warren in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While the leads do their very utmost, their relationship doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are frequently anticlimactically cut short. A key moment is surely when, provoked beyond endurance in the gym one day by Hamed as a delusional “old man”, Ingle actually proposes to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is shocked and uneasy. How exactly is this insanely risky confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the ending? Certainly the Prince is going to kill him? Or will he sentimentally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there are no some nice jabs. Brosnan gets laughs when Ingle informs a reporter what he’s instructing the kids from his local community: to oppose bias and when you meet a offender, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the ridiculous stunts the coach makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “monster from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

Regarding the rift, the film shows this as being exacerbated by a revealing book that the trainer is allegedly authored (a plot point clearly adapted from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his death is merely referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on screen. There is interesting material here, but the blows fail to connect.

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