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This film features a talented cast, depicting the real-life story of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Sheffield teenager from Yemeni migrant family. Known as Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront racist bullies and molded into a media-friendly titleholder in the 1990s. Ingle nurtured his flamboyant arrogance and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, the boxer turned against his coach, excluding him and turning him into a blend of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan portrays the trainer; Amir El-Masry takes on the role of Hamed, and Stephens appears as the assertive London promoter Frank Warren, who saw the goldmine that Ingle had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the film frankly lacks the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the all-important story in between is consistently flat and monotonous. It lacks nuance or contrast in the depiction of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity to show any depth or much of what might make his role truly engaging – although he’s clearly been training and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is often burdened by utilitarian, explanatory lines that inform you precisely what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your career at age seven …”). It is the sort of script that streaming-TV executives call “double-screen”, making sure you understand what’s going on while you’re viewing the movie but also glancing at your device. And, the score is overbearing, at times almost deafening, especially in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited calling on the promoter in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite ignites, and the major boxing moments are often disappointingly truncated. The most important moment is surely when, provoked beyond endurance in the training facility one day by the boxer as a delusional “elder”, the trainer in fact proposes to step into the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is stunned and uncomfortable. In what way is this insanely unwise confrontation going to unfold? What will be the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Or will he sentimentally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

That’s not to say that there are no some nice jabs. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle tells a journalist what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to reject prejudice and when you encounter a paedophile, “Hit them in the groin”. Amusing too when Hamed fidgets at the silly antics Ingle makes him do in the early days: acting like the “beast from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the falling out, the film depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that Ingle is allegedly authored (a plot point clearly adapted from another source), and there is an intriguingly conceived last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that the boxer is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his passing is only referenced in the end titles, and not shown on film. There is engaging content here, but the punches fail to connect.

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