🔗 Share this article

The movie boasts a talented cast, telling the real-life tale of coach Brendan Ingle, who mentored a brash Yorkshire teenager from Yemeni migrant family. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to confront racist bullies and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. Ingle nurtured his flamboyant confidence and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, the boxer turned against his mentor, cutting him out and turning him into a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan portrays Ingle; El-Masry takes on the part of Hamed, and Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Frank 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 drama in between is consistently flat and one-note. There is no subtlety or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity to show any subtlety or much of what might make his character truly engaging – although he’s clearly been working out and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is often burdened by functional, explanatory dialogue that inform you exactly what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your career at age seven …”). This is the kind of script that digital executives call “double-screen”, making sure you understand what’s unfolding while you’re watching the movie but also checking your phone. Additionally, the score is overpowering, at times almost deafening, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets too excited calling on the promoter in his palatial residence.

Performances and Key Moments

While the leads do their considerable utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are often disappointingly cut short. A key moment is surely when, provoked beyond endurance in the training facility one day by the boxer as a misguided “elder”, the trainer in fact offers to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely risky confrontation going to play out? How precisely the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Or will he emotionally hold back? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there aren’t some nice jabs. Brosnan elicits humor when his character informs a reporter what he’s teaching the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose prejudice and when you encounter a paedophile, “Hit them in the groin”. Amusing too when Hamed fidgets at the silly antics the coach makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “monster from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the falling out, the film shows this as being worsened by a revealing publication that the trainer is supposed to have authored (a story element clearly modified from prior material), and there is an interestingly conceived final conversation – although the heartfelt homage that the boxer is supposed to have given to his mentor after his death is merely mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. Some interesting material in this film, but the punches don’t land.

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