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The movie boasts a impressive ensemble, telling the true story of coach Brendan Ingle, who mentored a brash Sheffield teenager from Yemeni migrant parents. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to stand up to racist bullies and molded into a media-friendly titleholder in the 1990s. The trainer nurtured his flamboyant confidence and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, Hamed betrayed his coach, excluding him and turning him into a mix of John Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan portrays the trainer; El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Stephens is the assertive promoter Frank Warren, who saw the goldmine that the coach had discovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the movie honestly lacks the fighter’s agility: the boxing sequences flow well, but the all-important drama in between is consistently flat and monotonous. There is no nuance or contrast in the depiction of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the opportunity to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – even though he’s obviously been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is repeatedly burdened by functional, explanatory lines that tell you precisely what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). This is the sort of dialogue that digital producers call “second-screen”, making sure you understand what’s unfolding while you’re watching the film but also glancing at your phone. And, the background music is overbearing, sometimes nearly deafening, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited calling on the promoter in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece boxing moments are often anticlimactically truncated. A key scene is certainly when, provoked beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a misguided “elder”, Ingle in fact proposes to step into the ring and fight him. All present in the gym is stunned and uneasy. In what way is this insanely unwise standoff going to unfold? How precisely the outcome? Surely the champion is going to defeat him? Or will he emotionally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. The actor gets laughs when his character tells a reporter what he’s teaching the youths from his neighborhood: to oppose prejudice and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when the boxer fidgets at the silly stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: posing as the “beast from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the rift, the movie shows this as being worsened by a tell-all publication that the trainer is supposed to have written (a plot point evidently adapted from prior material), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – although the emotional tribute that Hamed is reportedly paid to his mentor after his death is only mentioned in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. Some engaging content in this film, but the punches fail to connect.

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