Chichester Cinema at New Park
A Prophet
Un Prophète
Jacques Audiard's astounding prison drama is the crime movie of the year.
When Malik, a young French Arab, finds himself in prison with no friends or allies, he goes out of his way to be useful to the dominant Corsican gang and its leader Cesar Luciani. After a gruelling rites-of-passage murder of a new friend, he builds, by slow degrees, a power base of his own.
This astounding prison drama has a visceral intensity of conception and delivery. At present no Hollywood director can match Jacques Audiard's vice-like grip on character-driven action cinema. Time rips by in fingernail- biting anticipation of Malik's brutally authentic travails.
His irrepressible nature is brilliantly incarnated by Tahar Rahim, whose impact is equally matched by Audiard regular Niels Arestrup as the Corsican boss. As exciting as ‘Mesrine’, more enthralling than ‘Public Enemies’, this is undoubtedly the crime drama of the year, and critically highly acclaimed at Cannes as one of the best films. (subtitles).
France · 2009 · Jacques Audiard · 150min
