The Giant Film Analysis: Prince Naseem Biopic Featuring Pierce Brosnan Lacks the Impact

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

Cast and Characters

Brosnan plays Ingle; Amir El-Masry takes on the role of Hamed, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish promoter Warren, who recognized the goldmine that the coach had discovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

Yet, the movie honestly misses the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences flow well, but the crucial story in between is repeatedly dull 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 character truly engaging – even though he’s clearly been training and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is often lumbered with functional, explanatory lines that tell 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 producers call “double-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s going on while you’re viewing the movie but also checking your phone. And, the score is overpowering, sometimes almost overwhelming, particularly in the scene where Hamed gets overexcited visiting Warren in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their relationship never really ignites, and the big set-piece boxing moments are often anticlimactically cut short. The most important moment is certainly when, provoked past his limit in the gym one day by Hamed as a misguided “old man”, Ingle in fact proposes to get in the ring and box him. Everyone in the gym is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely unwise standoff going to unfold? What will be the ending? Certainly the champion is going to kill him? Or will he emotionally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle tells a reporter what he’s teaching the youths from his local community: to reject bias and when you meet a offender, “Hit them in the groin”. Amusing too when Hamed squirms at the ridiculous antics Ingle makes him do in the early days: acting like the “beast from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the rift, the movie depicts this as being exacerbated by a revealing publication that Ingle is supposed to have written (a story element clearly modified from prior material), and there is an intriguingly conceived last discussion – although the emotional tribute that Hamed is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his death is merely referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. Some interesting material in this film, but the blows don’t land.

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