🔗 Share this article

This film boasts a impressive ensemble, depicting the real-life story of coach Ingle, who guided a cheeky Yorkshire youth from Yemeni migrant parents. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the youngster was coached to stand up to racist bullies and molded into a media-friendly world champion in the late 90s. Ingle cultivated his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, the boxer betrayed his coach, excluding him and making him a mix of John Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan plays the trainer; Amir El-Masry embodies the part of Hamed, and Toby Stephens is the assertive London promoter Warren, who saw the potential that Ingle had discovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the movie honestly lacks the Prince’s fancy footwork: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the all-important story in between is consistently flat and monotonous. There is no subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the chance to show any depth or much of what might make his role really interesting – although he’s obviously been training and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is often burdened by utilitarian, explanatory dialogue that inform you exactly what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your career at seven years old …”). This is the kind of dialogue that digital producers call “second-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re watching the film but also glancing at your device. And, the background music is overpowering, at times nearly deafening, particularly in the moment where the boxer gets overexcited calling on the promoter in his palatial home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although the leads do their considerable utmost, their dynamic never really ignites, and the big set-piece fight scenes are often disappointingly truncated. The most important scene is certainly when, goaded past his limit in the training facility one day by Hamed as a misguided “old man”, the trainer actually proposes to get in the ring and fight him. All present in the gym is stunned and uncomfortable. How exactly is this extremely unwise standoff going to unfold? What will be the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to defeat him? Or will he emotionally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there aren’t some nice jabs. The actor elicits humor when Ingle tells a journalist what he’s instructing the youths from his local community: to oppose prejudice and when you meet a offender, “Punch him in the bollocks”. Amusing too when Hamed fidgets at the ridiculous antics the coach makes him do in the early days: acting like the “beast from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

Regarding the falling out, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a tell-all publication that Ingle is supposed to have written (a story element evidently modified from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined final conversation – although the heartfelt homage that the boxer is supposed to have given to his mentor after his passing is merely referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. Some interesting material here, but the blows fail to connect.

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