The movie boasts a talented ensemble, depicting the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who mentored a brash Sheffield teenager from Yemeni migrant parents. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to confront racist bullies and transformed into a media-friendly world champion in the 1990s. The trainer nurtured his showboating confidence and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, the boxer betrayed his coach, excluding him and making him a blend of Falstaff and Danny Rose.
Brosnan portrays Ingle; El-Masry takes on the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens is the assertive promoter Frank Warren, who saw the potential that Ingle had uncovered.
However, the film honestly lacks the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial drama in between is consistently dull and monotonous. There is no nuance or light and shade in the depiction of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the opportunity to show any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – even though he’s obviously been working out and looks very plausible in the ring.
The drama is often lumbered with utilitarian, expositional dialogue that inform you exactly what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). It is the sort of dialogue that streaming-TV executives call “second-screen”, making sure you understand what’s unfolding while you’re watching the film but also checking your device. And, the background music is overbearing, at times almost overwhelming, especially in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited calling on the promoter in his palatial residence.
Although the leads do their very utmost, their dynamic never really comes to life, and the major boxing moments are frequently disappointingly truncated. A key moment is certainly when, goaded past his limit in the training facility one day by the boxer as a delusional “elder”, the trainer actually proposes to step into the ring and box him. All present in the gym is shocked and uncomfortable. In what way is this extremely unwise standoff going to unfold? How precisely the ending? Surely the Prince is going to defeat him? Or will he emotionally hold back? It’s not clear.
That’s not to say that there are no some good moments. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle informs a reporter what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose prejudice and when you encounter a offender, “Hit them in the groin”. It’s funny too when the boxer squirms at the silly antics the coach makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “monster from the East”.
As for the rift, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a tell-all book that Ingle is supposed to have written (a story element evidently modified from prior material), and there is an intriguingly imagined final conversation – however the emotional tribute that the boxer is supposed to have paid to Ingle after his passing is only mentioned in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. There is interesting material here, but the blows don’t land.
The film was shown at the London film festival and is in UK and Irish cinemas from January 9.
