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The movie boasts a talented cast, telling the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Sheffield youth from Yemeni immigrant parents. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. Ingle nurtured his flamboyant arrogance and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, Hamed betrayed his mentor, excluding him and making him a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

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

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the movie honestly misses the Prince’s fancy footwork: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial drama in between is consistently flat and one-note. It lacks nuance or light and shade in the portrayal of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity to show any subtlety or much of what might make his role truly engaging – although he’s obviously been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story 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 boxing journey at age seven …”). This is the kind of script that streaming-TV executives call “second-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the movie but also glancing at your phone. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, at times nearly deafening, especially in the moment where the boxer gets overexcited calling on the promoter in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable utmost, their dynamic never really comes to life, and the major boxing moments are frequently disappointingly truncated. The most important moment is certainly when, provoked beyond endurance in the training facility one day by the boxer as a misguided “elder”, the trainer actually offers to step into the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is shocked and uneasy. How exactly is this insanely risky confrontation going to unfold? What will be the outcome? Certainly the champion is going to kill him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

That’s not to say that there aren’t some good moments. The actor gets laughs when Ingle tells a reporter what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose bias and when you meet a offender, “Hit them in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when Hamed fidgets at the ridiculous stunts the coach makes him do in the early days: posing as the “monster from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the rift, the film shows this as being exacerbated by a revealing book that the trainer is supposed to have authored (a plot point evidently modified from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that the boxer is supposed to have given to his mentor after his death is only referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on screen. Some interesting material here, but the blows don’t land.

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