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This film boasts a talented ensemble, depicting the real-life tale of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who mentored a brash Sheffield youth from Middle Eastern migrant family. Dubbed Naseem Hamed, the fighter was coached to confront prejudice and transformed into a celebrity titleholder in the late 90s. Ingle cultivated his showboating arrogance and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, the boxer turned against his coach, cutting him out and making him a blend of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan portrays Ingle; Amir El-Masry takes on the part of the prince, and Toby Stephens is the assertive promoter Frank Warren, who saw the potential that Ingle had uncovered.

Where the Movie Falls Short

However, the film honestly misses the fighter’s agility: the boxing sequences run smoothly, but the crucial drama in between is repeatedly flat and one-note. It lacks subtlety or light and shade in the depiction of Hamed himself, and El-Masry, an otherwise excellent talent, doesn’t get the opportunity to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role truly engaging – although he’s obviously been training and appears convincing in the ring.

Problems with Script and Sound

The story is often lumbered with utilitarian, expositional dialogue that inform you precisely what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“You started your boxing journey at age seven …”). It is the kind of script that streaming-TV producers call “second-screen”, making sure you know what’s unfolding while you’re watching the film but also checking your phone. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, at times almost overwhelming, especially in the scene where Hamed gets overexcited visiting Warren in his palatial home.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their relationship never really ignites, and the big set-piece boxing moments are frequently anticlimactically truncated. A key moment is surely when, goaded past his limit in the training facility one day by the boxer as a misguided “old man”, Ingle in fact proposes to step into the ring and box him. Everyone in the room is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely risky standoff going to unfold? How precisely the ending? Certainly the Prince is going to kill him? Alternatively will he sentimentally pull his punches? It’s not clear.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there are no some good moments. 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, “Hit them in the bollocks”. It’s funny too when the boxer fidgets at the silly stunts Ingle makes him do in the beginning: acting like the “monster from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

Regarding the falling out, the film depicts this as being worsened by a revealing book that the trainer is supposed to have authored (a plot point clearly modified from prior material), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – although the emotional tribute that the boxer is supposed to have paid to Ingle after his passing is only referenced in the end titles, and not dramatised on film. There is engaging content in this film, but the blows don’t land.

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