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The movie features a impressive cast, depicting the real-life story of coach Ingle, who guided a cheeky Yorkshire teenager from Yemeni immigrant family. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to stand up to racist bullies and molded into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. The trainer cultivated his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, Hamed betrayed his coach, cutting him out and making him a mix of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Pierce Brosnan plays Ingle; Amir El-Masry embodies the role of Hamed, and Stephens appears as the assertive promoter Warren, who recognized the potential that Ingle had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the film frankly misses the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the crucial story in between is repeatedly dull and one-note. It lacks subtlety or light and shade in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the opportunity to display any depth or much of what might make his role really interesting – even though he’s clearly been training and appears convincing in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is often burdened by functional, expositional dialogue that inform you precisely what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your career at seven years old …”). This is the kind of dialogue that digital executives call “second-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the film but also glancing at your device. Additionally, the score is overpowering, sometimes nearly deafening, especially in the scene where the boxer gets too excited visiting the promoter in his palatial home.

Performances and Key Moments

While the leads do their considerable best, their relationship doesn’t quite ignites, and the major boxing moments are frequently anticlimactically truncated. A key moment is surely when, goaded beyond endurance in the gym one day by the boxer as a misguided “old man”, the trainer actually proposes to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the room is shocked and uncomfortable. How exactly is this insanely unwise standoff going to unfold? What will be the ending? Surely the Prince is going to defeat him? Or will he emotionally pull his punches? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

That’s not to say that there are no some good moments. The actor elicits humor when his character informs a journalist what he’s instructing the kids from his local community: to oppose prejudice and when you meet a offender, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “monster from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the rift, the movie depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that Ingle is allegedly written (a plot point evidently adapted from prior material), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – although the emotional tribute that the boxer is supposed to have paid to Ingle after his passing is only mentioned in the closing credits, and not shown on screen. There is interesting material in this film, but the blows don’t land.

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