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This film boasts a talented ensemble, telling the true story of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who guided a brash Sheffield teenager from Middle Eastern migrant family. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront racist bullies and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the late 90s. The trainer nurtured his showboating arrogance and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, the boxer turned against his coach, excluding him and making him a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Pierce Brosnan plays the trainer; Amir El-Masry takes on the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens is the bullish promoter Warren, who saw the potential that the coach had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie honestly misses the Prince’s agility: the fight scenes flow well, but the crucial drama between them is repeatedly flat and one-note. There is no subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the chance to display any subtlety or much of what might make his character truly engaging – although he’s clearly been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is often burdened by functional, expositional dialogue that tell you exactly what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your career at seven years old …”). This is the kind of dialogue that streaming-TV executives call “double-screen”, making sure you know what’s going on while you’re watching the film but also checking your device. And, the score is overpowering, sometimes nearly deafening, especially in the scene where the boxer gets too excited calling on the promoter in his palatial residence.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable utmost, their relationship doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece boxing moments are frequently anticlimactically truncated. The most important moment is surely when, provoked beyond endurance in the training facility one day by the boxer as a misguided “elder”, Ingle actually proposes to get in the ring and box him. Everyone in the gym is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely risky confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the outcome? Surely the champion is going to kill him? Or will he sentimentally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

That’s not to say that there are no some nice jabs. Brosnan elicits humor when his character informs a reporter what he’s instructing the youths from his local community: to oppose bias and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when the boxer fidgets at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “beast from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the rift, the movie shows this as being exacerbated by a revealing publication that the trainer is allegedly authored (a story element clearly adapted from prior material), and there is an interestingly conceived final conversation – 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 shown 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 cinemas from January 9.