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This film features a impressive cast, telling the true tale of Irish boxing trainer Ingle, who mentored a brash Sheffield youth from Middle Eastern immigrant parents. Known as Naseem Hamed, the youngster was taught to stand up to racist bullies and transformed into a media-friendly world champion in the 1990s. Ingle cultivated his flamboyant arrogance and lethal fists, but after achieving wealth, Hamed turned against his mentor, cutting him out and turning him into a mix of Falstaff and Broadway Danny Rose.

Performers and Roles

Pierce Brosnan portrays the trainer; El-Masry embodies the part of Hamed, and Stephens appears as the bullish London promoter Warren, who recognized the goldmine that Ingle had uncovered.

Film’s Shortcomings

Yet, the film honestly misses the fighter’s fancy footwork: the fight scenes flow well, but the crucial drama in between is consistently flat and one-note. It lacks subtlety or contrast in the depiction of the protagonist himself, and the actor, an otherwise outstanding performer, isn’t given the opportunity to show any depth or much of what might make his character really interesting – although he’s clearly been training and appears convincing in the ring.

Dialogue and Music Issues

The story is repeatedly burdened by functional, expositional lines that inform you precisely what is happening and what we are supposed to be thinking (“Your journey began your boxing journey at age seven …”). This is the kind of script that digital executives call “double-screen”, ensuring you know what’s unfolding while you’re watching the movie but also checking your phone. Additionally, the background music is overpowering, sometimes nearly deafening, particularly in the scene where the boxer gets overexcited visiting the promoter in his palatial residence.

Performances and Key Moments

Although El-Masry and Brosnan do their very utmost, their relationship never really comes to life, and the major boxing moments are often disappointingly cut short. A key scene is certainly when, goaded beyond endurance in the training facility one day by the boxer as a misguided “old man”, the trainer in fact proposes to get in the ring and fight him. All present in the room is shocked and uneasy. In what way is this extremely risky standoff going to play out? What will be the outcome? Certainly the champion is going to defeat him? Alternatively will he sentimentally pull his punches? The resolution remains ambiguous.

Highlights and Humor

This isn’t to imply that there aren’t some good moments. The actor elicits humor when Ingle informs a journalist what he’s instructing the youths from his neighborhood: to oppose bias and when you meet a paedophile, “Hit them in the bollocks”. Amusing too when the boxer fidgets at the ridiculous stunts Ingle makes him do in the early days: posing as the “monster from the East”.

Plot and Conclusion

As for the rift, the movie depicts this as being worsened by a tell-all book that Ingle is supposed to have written (a plot point clearly modified from another source), and there is an interestingly imagined last discussion – however the heartfelt homage that Hamed is supposed to have given to his mentor after his death is only mentioned in the end titles, and not shown on screen. There is interesting material in this film, but the punches fail to connect.

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