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The movie boasts a impressive ensemble, depicting the real-life story of coach Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Yorkshire teenager from Yemeni immigrant parents. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to stand up to prejudice and transformed into a media-friendly world champion in the late 90s. The trainer cultivated his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, the boxer betrayed his coach, excluding him and turning him into a blend of John Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan plays Ingle; El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Toby Stephens is the assertive promoter Warren, who recognized the goldmine that the coach had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie honestly lacks the fighter’s fancy footwork: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial story between them is consistently flat and one-note. There is no subtlety or contrast in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, isn’t given the opportunity to show any depth 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 drama is often lumbered with functional, explanatory lines that inform you exactly what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“You started your boxing journey at seven years old …”). This is the kind of script that streaming-TV producers call “double-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also checking your phone. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, at times almost deafening, especially in the moment where Hamed gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his palatial residence.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very best, their relationship never really ignites, and the major fight scenes are often anticlimactically cut short. A key scene is surely when, provoked past his limit in the gym one day by Hamed as a misguided “old man”, the trainer actually proposes to step into the ring and fight him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uneasy. In what way is this insanely risky standoff going to play out? What will be the ending? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. The actor gets laughs when his character tells a journalist what he’s teaching the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose prejudice and when you encounter a paedophile, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the ridiculous antics Ingle makes him do in the early days: acting like the “beast from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the falling out, the film shows this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that Ingle is allegedly written (a story element evidently adapted from prior material), and there is an interestingly imagined final conversation – however the emotional tribute that Hamed is supposed to have paid to Ingle after his passing is merely referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. There is interesting material in this film, but the blows don’t land.

Giant was shown at the London film festival and is available in British and Irish theaters from January 9.