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This film features a talented ensemble, telling the real-life tale of coach Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Yorkshire youth from Middle Eastern migrant parents. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to stand up to prejudice and molded into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. The trainer cultivated his showboating arrogance and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, the boxer betrayed his coach, cutting him out and turning him into a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Pierce Brosnan portrays the trainer; Amir El-Masry takes on the part of the prince, and Stephens appears as the bullish promoter Warren, who saw the potential that the coach had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the film honestly misses the Prince’s agility: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the all-important drama between them is consistently flat and one-note. It lacks subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the opportunity to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – even though he’s clearly been working out and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is repeatedly lumbered with functional, explanatory dialogue that inform you exactly what is happening and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your career at age seven …”). This is the sort of dialogue that digital executives call “double-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also glancing at your phone. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, sometimes almost overwhelming, especially in the scene where Hamed gets too excited calling on Warren in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

Although the leads do their considerable utmost, their relationship doesn’t quite comes to life, and the major boxing moments are frequently anticlimactically truncated. A key scene is surely when, goaded past his limit in the training facility one day by the boxer as a misguided “old man”, Ingle actually proposes to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is shocked and uncomfortable. In what way is this insanely unwise standoff going to play out? How precisely the ending? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Alternatively will he emotionally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

That’s not to say that there aren’t some good moments. The actor gets laughs when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s instructing the youths from his local community: to reject bias and when you meet a paedophile, “Punch him in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when Hamed fidgets at the silly stunts the coach makes him do in the early days: posing as the “monster from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the rift, the movie shows this as being worsened by a revealing publication that the trainer is supposed to have authored (a plot point clearly modified from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined final conversation – however the emotional tribute that the boxer is reportedly paid to Ingle after his passing is merely mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is engaging content in this film, but the punches don’t land.

The film was shown at the festival and is available in UK and Irish theaters from January 9.