Rowan Athale can direct actors with patience and feeling. We are less convinced by his writing: Giant gives Pierce Brosnan’s trainer plenty to work with, but leaves the boxer at the centre of the story frustratingly indistinct.
Fi1m perspective
In Giant (2026), Amir El-Masry’s Prince Naseem Hamed makes his entrance with his chin raised and his mouth going, already performing before he throws a punch. We sat forward for the first ring walk, then felt let down by how quickly Athale hurried away from the fights. As writer and director, he makes Hamed’s trainer Brendan Ingle, played by Pierce Brosnan, the person we understand best. The relationship holds our attention, but Hamed’s own wants remain frustratingly unclear.
His feature debut as writer-director, The Rise (2012), also known as Wasteland, was a heist thriller set in his Yorkshire hometown. Local detail and camaraderie were already central to the work. He directed the noir thriller Strange But True (2019), while his screenwriting credits include Revolt (2017), Outside the Wire (2021) and The Vault (2021). The early Sheffield scenes of Giant bring him back to northern ground, and Hamed is good company there.
He also wrote two episodes of Gangs of London in 2022. We recommend the series to action enthusiasts for its inventive fights and Sope Dirisu’s presence, with a firm warning about the relentless brutality. The gangland plotting is less persuasive. That judgement concerns the programme as a whole; it would be unfair to assign either its strengths or its weaknesses to one contributing writer.
With Giant, his writing and direction can be considered together. Larry Smith’s low-lit gym photography stays close to the bags and bodies, giving the training a physical presence the short fights struggle to match. Frequent collaborator Neil Athale supplies a score that pushes too hard beneath the training montages. Brosnan needs less assistance: Athale’s willingness to let him hold a room makes Ingle the film’s most rewarding company.
The difficulty is what that attention leaves out. El-Masry has the swagger, but the screenplay keeps handing Hamed’s wants to other people to explain, so his fame grows without our understanding of him keeping pace. The familiar biopic plotting does little to fill that gap. Brosnan is the reason to try Giant; do not expect to leave with an equally clear picture of Hamed.
Biography
Rowan Athale is a British-Indian writer and director from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. He made his feature debut writing and directing the heist thriller Wasteland (also known as The Rise, 2012), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Athale has written screenplays for Revolt (2017), Outside the Wire (2021) and The Vault (2021), and directed Strange but True (2019). He wrote and directed the biographical sports drama Giant (2025), which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and was released in the UK in 2026. He is the brother of composer Neil Athale, with whom he has collaborated.
