A PROPHET

WINNER: 2009 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix

SHOWTIMES

 

Jacques Audiard's A Prophet is an epic crime saga in the tradition of Goodfellas and The Godfather. When we first meet Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), he is a scared street kid entering prison without friends or any real sense of the complex and brutal rules that govern his new environment. Malik is easy prey for the gangs that dominate the prison, and is soon ensnared by the ruthless Corsican crime lord César Luciani (Niels Arestrup). Luciani presents Makik with a stark ultimatum: kill or be killed. The Corsicans take advantage of Malik's Arab background in an attempt to assassinate an imprisoned political activist under the protection of the prison's Arab gangs. Both sides see Malik as an insignificant pawn. However, he is a fast learner who soon begins to hatch his own schemes and plot an amazing rise to power within the French underworld. Audiard begins the film with a jittery claustrophobic approach that perfectly matches Malik's terror during his early days in prison, but as Malik's mastery of his situation grows, Audiard mirrors his growing confidence with an increasingly expansive visual style. Despite directing acclaimed works like The Beat My Heart Skipped, Audiard’s name is little known by American audiences, but that is about to change with the release of this brilliant and powerful crime drama. —Dylan Skolnick  France, 2009, 149 min., rated R

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