Review: A Prophet

Sometimes a film comes along and completely immerses you in its world. Some films like Avatar have to use a budget of several hundred million dollars to do it but others like France's A Prophet need very little. Set almost entirely in a French prison we follow Malik as he sentenced to six years behind bars for an unmentioned crime and quickly bullied by the Corsicans into murder despite himself being an Arab. We are there with Malik as he agonises over ethical dilemmas and has to decide whether to side with the Muslims or the Corsicans and whether to fall into a life of crime or rehabiltate himself through the prison school.

Every element of prison life is displayed here and done with very little cliche. Although we do get the same kind of characters we see in other prison dramas - the elderly gangster, the drug dealer, the corrupt guards they are fully rounded characters and we see their fears as well as their strengths. The film relies almost entirely on Tahir Rahim as Malki he is completly compelling and more than deserving of his Orange BAFTA Rising Star (but where are the Best Actor nominations?). Director Jacques Audiard is able to make us empathise with a criminal once again, as we go beyond the character and look at their dreams, he struck gold with The Beat that My Heart Skipped and he does it again here. Although this is Rahim's show Niels Arestrup is brilliant as the aging gangster and as quietly threatening as he was as the father in Audiard's previous film.

If you're looking for bangs and explosions look elsewhere but A Prophet is the only film this year that lets us explore a world full of real characters and gives us thrills without ever patronising us, A Prophet is destined to be one of the films of the year.