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The movie features a impressive cast, depicting the real-life story of coach Brendan Ingle, who mentored a brash Yorkshire teenager from Middle Eastern migrant family. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the youngster was coached to confront racist bullies and molded into a media-friendly titleholder in the 1990s. The trainer cultivated his flamboyant arrogance and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, Hamed turned against his mentor, excluding him and making him a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan portrays Ingle; El-Masry takes on the part of Hamed, and Stephens is the assertive London promoter Warren, who recognized the potential that Ingle had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie honestly lacks the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences flow well, but the crucial story between them is consistently flat and monotonous. It lacks nuance or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the chance to show any depth or much of what might make his character really interesting – even though he’s clearly been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is often lumbered with functional, explanatory dialogue that tell you exactly what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). This is the sort of script that digital executives call “second-screen”, making sure you know what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also glancing at your device. And, the background music is overbearing, sometimes almost overwhelming, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets too excited calling on Warren in his palatial home.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their relationship doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are often anticlimactically truncated. The most important moment is certainly when, goaded past his limit in the training facility one day by the boxer as a delusional “elder”, the trainer in fact proposes to get in the ring and fight him. All present in the gym is stunned and uncomfortable. In what way is this extremely risky confrontation going to unfold? What will be the ending? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Or will he emotionally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there are no some nice jabs. The actor elicits humor when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s instructing the kids from his local community: to reject bias and when you meet a offender, “Punch him in the groin”. Amusing too when Hamed squirms at the silly antics the coach makes him do in the early days: acting like the “monster from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the falling out, the film depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that Ingle is allegedly written (a plot point evidently modified from another source), and there is an intriguingly conceived last discussion – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is reportedly paid to his mentor after his death is only mentioned in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. Some interesting material in this film, but the blows don’t land.

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