The Giant Review: Naseem Hamed Movie Starring Brosnan Misses the Punch

The movie boasts a impressive cast, depicting the real-life tale of coach Ingle, who mentored a brash Sheffield teenager from Yemeni migrant family. Known as “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to stand up to racist bullies and molded into a celebrity world champion in the 1990s. Ingle nurtured his flamboyant arrogance and powerful punches, but after becoming rich, the boxer turned against his mentor, excluding him and making him a blend of Falstaff and Danny Rose.

Cast and Characters

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

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie frankly misses the fighter’s agility: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the all-important drama in between is repeatedly dull and one-note. There is no subtlety or contrast in the depiction of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the chance to show any subtlety or much of what might make his role really interesting – even though he’s obviously been working out and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Problems with Script and Sound

The drama is often burdened by functional, expositional lines that tell you precisely what is going on and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your career at age seven …”). This is the kind of script that digital producers call “second-screen”, ensuring you understand what’s going on while you’re viewing the film but also checking your phone. And, the background music is overbearing, sometimes almost overwhelming, especially in the scene where Hamed gets too excited calling on the promoter in his palatial home.

Performances and Key Moments

While the leads do their very utmost, their dynamic doesn’t quite comes to life, and the major boxing moments are often anticlimactically cut short. A key moment is surely when, provoked beyond endurance in the training facility one day by the boxer as a misguided “elder”, the trainer actually offers to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is stunned and uneasy. How exactly is this extremely risky confrontation going to play out? How precisely the outcome? Surely the Prince is going to kill him? Or will he emotionally 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 youths from his local community: to reject bias and when you meet a paedophile, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer squirms at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: posing as the “monster from the East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

Regarding the rift, the movie depicts this as being exacerbated by a tell-all publication that Ingle is supposed to have written (a story element clearly adapted from another source), and there is an interestingly conceived last discussion – although the emotional tribute that the boxer is supposed to have paid to Ingle after his passing is merely mentioned in the end titles, and not dramatised on screen. There is interesting material here, but the punches don’t land.

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