🔗 Share this article

The movie boasts a impressive cast, depicting the real-life story of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who guided a cheeky Sheffield teenager from Middle Eastern migrant parents. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the fighter was taught to stand up to prejudice and molded into a media-friendly world champion in the 1990s. Ingle cultivated his showboating confidence and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, Hamed betrayed his mentor, cutting him out and making him a mix of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Pierce Brosnan plays Ingle; El-Masry takes on the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens is the bullish promoter Warren, who recognized the goldmine that Ingle had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the film frankly lacks the Prince’s fancy footwork: the fight scenes flow well, but the crucial story between them is consistently dull and monotonous. There is no nuance or contrast in the portrayal of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity to show any subtlety 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 story is often burdened by functional, explanatory dialogue that tell you precisely what is happening and what we are supposed to be thinking (“You started your boxing journey at age seven …”). It is the sort of dialogue that digital executives call “double-screen”, making sure you know what’s going on while you’re watching the movie but also checking your device. And, the score is overbearing, sometimes almost deafening, especially in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited visiting Warren in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their dynamic never really comes to life, and the big set-piece boxing moments are often anticlimactically truncated. A key scene is surely when, goaded past his limit in the gym one day by Hamed as a misguided “elder”, the trainer in fact proposes to step into the ring and box him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uneasy. In what way is this extremely risky confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Alternatively will he emotionally hold back? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Bright Spots and Comedy

This isn’t to imply that there are no some nice jabs. Brosnan gets laughs when Ingle informs a reporter what he’s teaching the youths from his neighborhood: to reject prejudice and when you meet a paedophile, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer squirms at the silly stunts Ingle 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 story element clearly modified from prior material), and there is an interestingly imagined final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that the boxer is supposed to have paid to his mentor after his passing is merely mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is engaging content in this film, but the punches fail to connect.

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