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The movie features a impressive ensemble, telling the true tale of Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, who mentored a cheeky Sheffield teenager from Yemeni immigrant parents. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and molded into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. The trainer cultivated his showboating confidence and lethal fists, but after becoming rich, Hamed turned against his mentor, excluding him and turning him into a blend of John Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Pierce Brosnan plays the trainer; El-Masry embodies the part of the prince, and Toby Stephens appears as the bullish promoter Frank Warren, who recognized the potential that Ingle had discovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the movie frankly lacks the Prince’s agility: the boxing sequences flow well, but the crucial drama between them is repeatedly dull and one-note. It lacks nuance or light and shade in the portrayal of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity to show any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – although he’s clearly been training and looks very plausible in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is repeatedly lumbered with functional, expositional lines that inform you exactly what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“You started your boxing journey at seven years old …”). It is the sort of dialogue that digital producers call “second-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 overpowering, at times almost overwhelming, particularly in the moment where Hamed gets too excited calling on Warren in his palatial residence.

Acting and Pivotal Scenes

While the leads do their considerable utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite ignites, and the major fight scenes are frequently disappointingly truncated. A key moment is certainly when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by the boxer as a delusional “old man”, Ingle actually offers to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is shocked and uncomfortable. In what way is this insanely unwise confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the ending? Certainly the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he sentimentally pull his punches? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. Brosnan elicits humor when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s instructing the kids from his neighborhood: to oppose prejudice and when you meet a offender, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when Hamed squirms at the ridiculous antics the coach makes him do in the early days: acting like the “monster from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the rift, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a tell-all publication that the trainer is supposed to have written (a plot point clearly adapted from another source), and there is an intriguingly imagined final conversation – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is reportedly paid to Ingle after his passing is only mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is interesting material in this film, but the punches don’t land.

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