The Giant Review: Prince Naseem Biopic Starring Brosnan Misses the Impact

The movie features a impressive cast, depicting the true story of coach Brendan Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Sheffield teenager from Yemeni immigrant parents. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and transformed into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. Ingle cultivated his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, the boxer turned against his coach, excluding him and turning him into a blend of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan portrays Ingle; Amir El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Stephens appears as the assertive London promoter Warren, who recognized the goldmine that the coach had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the film honestly misses the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes flow well, but the all-important story between them is consistently dull and monotonous. It lacks nuance 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 subtlety or much of what might make his character really interesting – even though he’s clearly been training and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is repeatedly burdened by functional, expositional dialogue that inform you exactly what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your career at age seven …”). This is the kind of script that streaming-TV executives call “double-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s unfolding while you’re viewing the film but also glancing at your phone. And, the score is overpowering, at times nearly overwhelming, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited calling on the promoter in his palatial home.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While the leads do their considerable utmost, their relationship doesn’t quite comes to life, and the big set-piece fight scenes are often disappointingly cut short. A key moment is certainly when, goaded past his limit in the training facility one day by the boxer as a misguided “old man”, the trainer actually offers to get in the ring and fight him. All present in the gym is shocked and uneasy. In what way is this extremely risky confrontation going to play out? How precisely the ending? Surely the champion is going to defeat him? Or will he sentimentally hold back? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

That’s not to say that there are no some nice jabs. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle tells a journalist what he’s teaching the youths from his local community: to oppose prejudice and when you meet a paedophile, “Punch him in the groin”. Amusing too when Hamed squirms at the ridiculous antics the coach makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “monster from the Middle East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the falling out, the film shows this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that the trainer is supposed to have written (a plot point evidently adapted from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have paid to Ingle after his death is only referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on screen. There is engaging content here, but the punches fail to connect.

Giant screened at the festival and is in UK and Irish theaters from January 9.