🔗 Share this article

This film boasts a impressive ensemble, depicting the true story of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who mentored a brash Sheffield teenager from Yemeni immigrant parents. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to stand up to racist bullies and transformed into a celebrity titleholder in the 1990s. Ingle cultivated his showboating confidence and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, Hamed betrayed his coach, cutting him out and making him a mix of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan plays Ingle; El-Masry takes on the part of Hamed, and Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Frank Warren, who saw the goldmine that the coach had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

Yet, the film frankly misses the Prince’s fancy footwork: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial drama in between is repeatedly flat and one-note. It lacks nuance or light and shade in the depiction of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the chance to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – even though he’s obviously been working out and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is repeatedly burdened by utilitarian, explanatory lines that inform you precisely what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“You started your career at seven years old …”). It 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 device. And, the score is overpowering, at times nearly deafening, especially in the scene where the boxer gets too excited visiting Warren in his palatial residence.

Performances and Key Moments

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the major fight scenes are often disappointingly cut short. The most important moment is certainly when, provoked beyond endurance in the gym one day by Hamed as a delusional “old man”, Ingle in fact offers to get in the ring and box him. All present in the gym is stunned and uncomfortable. How exactly is this insanely risky confrontation going to unfold? What will be the outcome? Surely the champion is going to defeat him? Or will he sentimentally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

That’s not to say that there aren’t some nice jabs. The actor elicits humor when Ingle tells a reporter what he’s teaching the kids 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 antics the coach makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “beast from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

Regarding the rift, the movie shows this as being exacerbated by a revealing publication that Ingle is supposed to have authored (a plot point clearly modified from prior material), and there is an intriguingly conceived last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have given to Ingle after his death is merely mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is engaging content here, but the blows fail to connect.

The film was shown at the London film festival and is in British and Irish cinemas from 9 January.