A Prophet
R (graphic violence, strong language, nudity); 155 min.
It might not have won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but don't let that detail dissuade you from seeing Jacques Audiard's enthralling crime drama A Prophet. A movie this brutally tough-minded was probably always going to be a hard sell to the notoriously stodgy foreign film voters. Oscar or not, this Scorsese-flavored epic seems destined to become a modern classic.
Set mostly within the confines of a large prison, A Prophet introduces us to Malik (Tahar Rahim), a young Arab man living in France who has recently been convicted of violence against a police officer. Shy and wary, Malik seems at odds with the Muslim population of the prison -- which makes him an easy mark for César Luciani (Niels Arestrup), who rules the powerful Corsican gang within the jail. César has some very dirty business that needs doing -- another Arab prisoner (Hichem Yacoubi) must be murdered because he's about to testify against the Corsican gang -- and thinks that Malik is the man for the job.
A Prophet suggests Audiard spent many hours watching American crime movies, especially GoodFellas. Malik works up the nerve to confront the marked Arab, and the murder sequence that follows seems to crack the entire movie open. As many killings as you've seen at the movies, you've never seen one quite like this.
After this early, shocking scene, A Prophet takes on an urgency and sweep that you don't entirely see coming. Audiard's two previous works, Read My Lips and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, are both accomplished, intimate psychological thrillers. But as A Prophet charts Malik's steady, unlikely rise within the ranks of the Corsican gang, Audiard tackles grand questions about national identity, the shifting nature of political power and racial divisions in modern France. Not unlike "The Godfather" pictures, this is pulp fiction with extraordinary depth of feeling and purpose.
In French with English subtitles.
Exclusive: Landmark Magnolia, Dallas; Angelika Plano. Opens March 19 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
