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This film boasts a talented cast, depicting the true story of coach Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Sheffield teenager from Yemeni immigrant parents. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the youngster was coached to confront racist bullies and molded into a media-friendly titleholder in the 1990s. The trainer cultivated his showboating arrogance and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, Hamed betrayed his coach, excluding him and turning him into a mix of John Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan portrays Ingle; Amir El-Masry takes on the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish promoter Frank Warren, who saw the potential that Ingle had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie frankly lacks the fighter’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial drama in between is repeatedly flat and one-note. There is no nuance or contrast in the portrayal of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, isn’t given the opportunity to display 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 boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is repeatedly burdened by utilitarian, expositional dialogue that inform you precisely what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). This is the kind of script that digital producers call “second-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s going on while you’re watching the movie but also checking your phone. And, the score is overbearing, sometimes nearly overwhelming, particularly in the moment where the boxer gets overexcited calling on the promoter in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable utmost, their relationship never really comes to life, and the major fight scenes are often anticlimactically cut short. A key scene is certainly when, provoked beyond endurance 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. Everyone in the gym is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely risky standoff going to unfold? What will be the ending? Surely the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there are no some nice jabs. The actor elicits humor when his character tells a journalist what he’s instructing the youths from his local community: to reject prejudice and when you meet a paedophile, “Punch him in the groin”. It’s funny too when Hamed squirms at the silly antics Ingle makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “monster from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the rift, the movie depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that Ingle is supposed to have authored (a plot point evidently modified from prior material), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that the boxer is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his death is only mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is interesting material here, but the punches don’t land.

The film screened at the festival and is in UK and Irish cinemas from January 9.