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The movie boasts a talented ensemble, telling the real-life story of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Sheffield teenager from Yemeni migrant parents. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and molded into a celebrity titleholder in the 1990s. The trainer nurtured his flamboyant arrogance and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, Hamed betrayed his coach, excluding him and turning him into a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan portrays the trainer; Amir El-Masry takes on the part of the prince, and Toby Stephens is the bullish promoter Warren, who saw the potential that the coach had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, 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. It lacks nuance or light and shade in the depiction of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the chance to display any depth or much of what might make his character really interesting – although he’s clearly been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is often burdened by utilitarian, explanatory dialogue that inform you precisely what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“You started your boxing journey at age seven …”). This is the kind of script that digital executives call “double-screen”, making sure you know what’s going on while you’re watching the film but also glancing at your phone. And, the background music is overpowering, at times nearly deafening, especially in the moment where the boxer gets too excited calling on the promoter in his palatial home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the major fight scenes are often anticlimactically truncated. The most important moment is surely when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a misguided “old man”, Ingle actually proposes to get in the ring and fight him. All present in the room is stunned and uncomfortable. In what way is this extremely risky standoff going to unfold? What will be the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he sentimentally hold back? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there are no some good moments. The actor gets laughs when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s instructing the youths from his neighborhood: to reject prejudice and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. Amusing too when Hamed fidgets at the silly antics Ingle makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “beast from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the rift, the movie shows this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that Ingle is supposed to have written (a story element evidently adapted from prior material), and there is an intriguingly conceived last discussion – however the heartfelt homage that the boxer is reportedly given to Ingle after his death is only referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. Some engaging content here, but the blows fail to connect.

The film was shown at the festival and is available in UK and Irish cinemas from January 9.