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This film features a talented ensemble, depicting the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who guided a cheeky Sheffield youth from Yemeni immigrant family. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront racist bullies and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the late 90s. The trainer cultivated his flamboyant confidence and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, Hamed turned against his coach, excluding him and turning him into a mix of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Pierce Brosnan portrays the trainer; El-Masry takes on the part of the prince, and Stephens is the assertive London promoter Warren, who saw the goldmine that Ingle had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the film frankly misses the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial story between them is repeatedly dull and one-note. There is no subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, isn’t given the chance to display 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 ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is repeatedly lumbered with functional, expositional dialogue that inform you exactly what is happening and what we are supposed to be thinking (“You started your boxing journey at seven years old …”). It is the sort of dialogue that digital producers call “second-screen”, ensuring you know what’s going on while you’re watching the film but also glancing at your device. Additionally, the background music is overbearing, at times nearly deafening, especially in the scene where Hamed gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their relationship doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are frequently anticlimactically truncated. A key moment is certainly when, provoked beyond endurance in the gym one day by the boxer as a delusional “old man”, the trainer in fact offers to get in the ring and fight him. All present in the gym is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely unwise standoff going to play out? How precisely the ending? Certainly the Prince is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he sentimentally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there are no some nice jabs. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s teaching the youths from his neighborhood: to oppose bias and when you meet a offender, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the silly antics the coach makes him do in the early days: acting like the “beast from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the rift, the film depicts this as being worsened by a revealing publication that the trainer is supposed to have authored (a plot point evidently adapted from another source), and there is an interestingly conceived last discussion – although the emotional tribute that Hamed is supposed to have given to his mentor after his passing is only mentioned in the end titles, and not shown on film. Some engaging content here, but the blows don’t land.

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