Giant Review: Naseem Hamed Biopic Featuring Pierce Brosnan Lacks the Punch

This film features a talented cast, depicting the true story of coach Brendan Ingle, who guided a cheeky Yorkshire teenager from Middle Eastern immigrant family. Known as Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to confront racist bullies and molded into a media-friendly titleholder in the late 90s. Ingle cultivated his flamboyant arrogance and powerful punches, but after achieving wealth, the boxer turned against his mentor, excluding him and turning him into a mix of John Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Brosnan portrays the trainer; Amir El-Masry embodies the role of Hamed, and Stephens is the bullish promoter Warren, who recognized the goldmine that Ingle had discovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

However, the movie honestly lacks the Prince’s agility: the fight scenes run smoothly, but the crucial story in between is consistently flat and one-note. It lacks nuance or contrast in the depiction of Hamed himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, doesn’t get the opportunity to display any subtlety or much of what might make his role truly engaging – although he’s obviously been working out and appears convincing in the boxing arena.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The drama is often burdened by functional, explanatory dialogue that inform you exactly what is happening and what we are meant to feel (“Your journey began your career 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 glancing at your device. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, at times almost deafening, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his palatial home.

Performances and Key Moments

While El-Masry and Brosnan do their considerable best, their dynamic doesn’t quite ignites, and the major boxing moments are often disappointingly truncated. A key moment is surely when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by Hamed as a delusional “elder”, the trainer actually offers to get in the ring and fight him. Everyone in the gym is shocked and uncomfortable. How exactly is this insanely unwise standoff going to play out? How precisely the ending? Surely the champion 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 aren’t some good moments. Brosnan elicits humor when his character tells a journalist what he’s teaching the youths from his local community: to oppose bias and when you encounter a offender, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer squirms at the silly stunts the coach makes him do in the beginning: posing as the “monster from the Middle East”.

Storyline and Final Thoughts

As for the falling out, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a tell-all publication that the trainer is supposed to have written (a plot point evidently modified from another source), and there is an interestingly conceived last discussion – although the heartfelt homage that Hamed is reportedly paid to Ingle after his passing is merely referenced in the closing credits, and not shown on film. Some interesting material in this film, but the blows don’t land.

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