This film features a talented cast, telling the true tale of coach Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Yorkshire teenager from Middle Eastern migrant parents. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to stand up to prejudice and molded into a media-friendly titleholder in the late 90s. Ingle cultivated his showboating arrogance and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, the boxer turned against his mentor, excluding him and making him a mix of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.
Cast and Characters
Pierce Brosnan plays the trainer; Amir El-Masry takes on the role of Hamed, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Warren, who saw the goldmine that Ingle had discovered.
Where the Movie Falls Short
Yet, the film honestly lacks the fighter’s fancy footwork: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the all-important drama in between is consistently flat and one-note. It lacks nuance or contrast in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the chance to show any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – although he’s obviously been working out and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.
Problems with Script and Sound
The story is repeatedly burdened by functional, expositional dialogue that inform you precisely what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“You started your career at age seven …”). It is the sort of script that digital executives call “second-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s unfolding while you’re watching the movie but also glancing at your device. And, the score is overbearing, at times almost overwhelming, particularly in the moment where the boxer gets too excited calling on Warren in his luxurious residence.
Performances and Key Moments
While El-Masry and Brosnan do their very best, their relationship never really ignites, and the major boxing moments are frequently anticlimactically truncated. A key scene is surely when, goaded beyond endurance in the gym one day by Hamed as a misguided “old man”, the trainer in fact offers to get in the ring and box him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uncomfortable. How exactly is this extremely unwise standoff going to play out? How precisely the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.
Highlights and Humor
This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. Brosnan elicits humor when his character tells a reporter what he’s teaching the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose prejudice and when you meet a paedophile, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when Hamed squirms at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “monster from the Middle East”.
Plot and Conclusion
Regarding the falling out, the movie shows this as being worsened by a tell-all book that Ingle is allegedly authored (a story element evidently modified from another source), and there is an intriguingly conceived last discussion – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have given to his mentor after his passing is merely mentioned in the closing credits, and not dramatised on screen. Some engaging content in this film, but the punches fail to connect.
The film screened at the festival and is available in UK and Irish cinemas from January 9.
