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This film features a impressive cast, depicting the real-life tale of coach Brendan Ingle, who guided a brash Sheffield youth from Middle Eastern immigrant family. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to stand up to prejudice and molded into a media-friendly titleholder in the 1990s. Ingle nurtured his showboating confidence and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, the boxer turned against his coach, excluding him and turning him into a mix of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan portrays the trainer; Amir El-Masry embodies the role of Hamed, and Toby Stephens appears as the assertive promoter Frank Warren, who saw the goldmine that the coach had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the film frankly lacks the Prince’s fancy footwork: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the crucial drama in between is consistently flat and one-note. There is no subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the chance to display any depth or much of what might make his character really interesting – although he’s obviously been working out and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The drama is often burdened by utilitarian, expositional lines that inform you exactly what is happening and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your career at seven years old …”). It is the kind of dialogue that digital executives call “second-screen”, making sure you know what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the film but also checking your device. Additionally, the score is overpowering, sometimes nearly deafening, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their dynamic doesn’t quite ignites, and the big set-piece boxing moments are frequently anticlimactically truncated. The most important moment is certainly when, provoked past his limit in the gym one day by the boxer as a delusional “old man”, the trainer in fact proposes to step into the ring and box him. Everyone in the gym is shocked and uneasy. How exactly is this insanely risky standoff going to play out? How precisely the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Or will he emotionally hold back? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there are no some good moments. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle informs a reporter what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to reject prejudice and when you encounter a paedophile, “Punch him in the bollocks”. Amusing too when Hamed squirms at the ridiculous antics the coach makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “beast from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the rift, the movie depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all book that the trainer is allegedly authored (a story element evidently adapted from another source), and there is an intriguingly imagined final conversation – however the emotional tribute that the boxer is reportedly given to his mentor after his passing is merely referenced in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. Some interesting material in this film, but the punches fail to connect.

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