Synopsis
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

“What's most immediately remarkable about [A PROPHET] is the raw intensity of its hyper-realistic encounters, hugely enhanced by the superb acting of newcomer Rahim. This naturalism is nicely counterpointed with a few unabashedly stylized, very lyrical sequences in which Audiard demonstrates his signature mastery of offbeat visual and sound effects.”—Peter Brunette, The Hollywood Reporter, May 16, 2009



Like the Depression-era gangster classics PUBLIC ENEMY and LITTLE CAESAR, Jacques Audiard’s story follows a disadvantaged young man as he masters the codes, rules and tactics of professional criminals. A PROPHET unfolds in prison, amidst a little-known conflict between the Corsicans, an older gang with fraying ties to the Italian mob, and the Arab-Muslim immigrants who, long abused in France, are beginning to rise. Malik (played with preternatural alertness and vitality by Tahar Rahim) is the illiterate 19-year-old “dirty Arab” hero whose feral survival instincts, nervous intelligence and bouts of luck make him an irresistible force. Niels Arestrup is memorable as his protector and mentor Luciani. And the Kafkaesque prison, where brutality erupts without signal or reason, serves as the film’s immovable object. The intensity of the conflict makes Audiard’s film a startling, compelling contemporary classic. –Larry Gross, 36th Telluride Film Festival