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This film boasts a talented cast, telling the true tale of coach Brendan Ingle, who mentored a brash Sheffield youth from Middle Eastern migrant family. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to stand up to prejudice and molded into a celebrity titleholder in the late 90s. Ingle nurtured his showboating arrogance and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, Hamed turned against his coach, cutting him out and making him a blend of John Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan plays Ingle; El-Masry embodies the role of Hamed, and Stephens is the bullish promoter Warren, who recognized the goldmine that the coach had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the film frankly lacks the fighter’s fancy footwork: the fight scenes flow well, but the all-important story in between is repeatedly flat and monotonous. It lacks nuance or contrast in the portrayal of the protagonist himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the chance to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – although he’s clearly been training and appears convincing in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is repeatedly lumbered with utilitarian, expositional dialogue that tell you exactly what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your boxing journey at seven years old …”). It is the kind of script that streaming-TV producers call “second-screen”, making sure you understand what’s going on while you’re viewing the movie but also checking your device. Additionally, the background music is overbearing, at times almost overwhelming, especially in the scene where the boxer gets too excited calling on Warren in his luxurious home.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While the leads do their very utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece boxing moments are often anticlimactically truncated. The most important moment is certainly when, goaded past his limit in the training facility one day by Hamed as a delusional “old man”, Ingle actually proposes to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uncomfortable. How exactly is this insanely risky confrontation going to play out? How precisely the outcome? Certainly the Prince is going to defeat him? Or will he sentimentally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some nice jabs. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s instructing the kids from his local community: to reject prejudice and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: acting like the “beast from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the rift, the film depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that Ingle is supposed to have written (a story element clearly adapted from prior material), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – although the emotional tribute that Hamed is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his passing is only referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. There is interesting material here, but the punches don’t land.

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