Giant Film Analysis: Naseem Hamed Movie Starring Brosnan Misses the Punch

This film features a impressive cast, depicting the true story of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who mentored a brash Yorkshire teenager from Middle Eastern migrant parents. Dubbed “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to stand up to prejudice and molded into a media-friendly world champion in the 1990s. Ingle nurtured his showboating confidence and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, Hamed betrayed his coach, excluding him and making him a blend of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

Brosnan portrays Ingle; Amir El-Masry embodies the role of the prince, and Toby Stephens appears as the assertive London promoter Frank Warren, who saw the potential that Ingle had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

Yet, the film honestly misses the fighter’s fancy footwork: the boxing sequences flow well, but the all-important drama in between is consistently dull and monotonous. It lacks subtlety or contrast in the portrayal of the protagonist 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 really interesting – although he’s clearly been training and looks very plausible in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is repeatedly lumbered with functional, expositional dialogue that inform you exactly what is going on and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your career at seven years old …”). It is the sort of dialogue that streaming-TV executives call “second-screen”, ensuring you know what’s going on while you’re watching the film but also glancing at your device. Additionally, the score is overpowering, sometimes almost deafening, especially in the scene where Hamed gets too excited calling on the promoter in his luxurious home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very best, their relationship never really ignites, and the big set-piece fight scenes are often anticlimactically cut short. The most important scene is surely when, provoked past his limit in the training facility one day by Hamed as a misguided “elder”, Ingle actually offers to step into the ring and fight him. Everyone in the room is shocked and uncomfortable. In what way is this insanely risky confrontation going to unfold? How precisely the ending? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Or will he sentimentally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there are no some nice jabs. Brosnan gets laughs when Ingle tells a reporter what he’s instructing the kids from his local community: to oppose bias and when you encounter a offender, “Punch him in the groin”. It’s funny too when Hamed squirms at the silly antics Ingle makes him do in the early days: posing as the “beast from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

Regarding the falling out, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a tell-all book that Ingle is allegedly written (a plot point evidently modified from another source), and there is an intriguingly imagined final conversation – however the emotional tribute that Hamed is supposed to have given to his mentor after his death is only referenced in the closing credits, and not dramatised on film. There is engaging content here, but the blows fail to connect.

The film screened at the festival and is available in British and Irish cinemas from 9 January.