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This film features a impressive cast, telling the true story of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Sheffield teenager from Middle Eastern immigrant parents. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to stand up to racist bullies and molded into a celebrity titleholder in the late 90s. The trainer nurtured his showboating confidence and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, the boxer betrayed his mentor, excluding him and making him a mix of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan portrays the trainer; Amir El-Masry embodies the role of the prince, and Stephens appears as the assertive London promoter Frank Warren, who recognized the potential that the coach had discovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the film frankly lacks the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the all-important story in between is consistently flat and one-note. It lacks subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, isn’t given the opportunity to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – although he’s obviously been training and appears convincing in the ring.

Problems with Script and Sound

The drama is often burdened by functional, expositional lines that tell you exactly what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“You started your career at seven years old …”). This is the sort of dialogue that digital producers call “second-screen”, making sure you know what’s going on while you’re watching the movie but also glancing at your phone. Additionally, the score is overpowering, sometimes almost deafening, particularly in the moment where the boxer gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his palatial home.

Performances and Key Moments

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the major boxing moments are frequently disappointingly truncated. A key moment is surely when, goaded past his limit in the gym one day by Hamed as a delusional “old man”, the trainer actually offers to step into the ring and box him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uncomfortable. In what way is this extremely unwise standoff going to play out? What will be the ending? Certainly the Prince is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

That’s not to say that there are no some nice jabs. The actor elicits humor when his character tells a journalist what he’s teaching the kids from his local community: to reject bias and when you encounter a offender, “Hit them in the groin”. Amusing too when Hamed fidgets at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: posing as the “beast from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the falling out, the film shows this as being worsened by a revealing publication that Ingle is supposed to have authored (a plot point evidently adapted from prior material), and there is an intriguingly conceived last discussion – however the heartfelt homage that the boxer is reportedly paid to his mentor after his death is only mentioned in the closing credits, and not shown on screen. Some engaging content in this film, but the punches fail to connect.

The film was shown at the London film festival and is in British and Irish theaters from January 9.