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This film features a impressive cast, telling the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who mentored a brash Sheffield teenager from Middle Eastern migrant family. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the youngster was coached to stand up to prejudice and transformed into a celebrity titleholder in the late 90s. The trainer cultivated his flamboyant confidence and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, the boxer turned against his coach, cutting him out and turning him into a blend of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan plays Ingle; El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Frank Warren, who recognized the potential that the coach had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the movie frankly misses the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences flow well, but the all-important story in between is consistently flat and one-note. There is no subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the chance to display any subtlety or much of what might make his character truly engaging – even though he’s clearly been training and appears convincing in the ring.

Problems with Script and Sound

The drama is repeatedly lumbered with functional, expositional lines that inform you precisely what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“You started your career at seven years old …”). This is the kind of script that digital producers call “second-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re watching the film but also checking your device. Additionally, the background music is overbearing, sometimes nearly overwhelming, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets too excited calling on Warren in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

While the leads do their considerable best, their dynamic never really ignites, and the major boxing moments are frequently disappointingly truncated. The most important scene is certainly when, goaded beyond endurance in the gym one day by the boxer as a delusional “old man”, the trainer actually proposes to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the room is shocked and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely unwise confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the outcome? Certainly the Prince is going to defeat him? Or will he emotionally hold back? It’s not clear.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there are no some nice jabs. The actor elicits humor when Ingle tells a journalist what he’s teaching the kids from his neighborhood: to reject prejudice and when you encounter a paedophile, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the silly stunts the coach makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “monster from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the falling out, the movie depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all book that Ingle is allegedly written (a story element clearly adapted from prior material), and there is an intriguingly conceived last discussion – however the emotional tribute that Hamed is supposed to have given to his mentor 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 festival and is available in UK and Irish cinemas from 9 January.