Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif
The director of Read My Lips and The Beat My Heart Skipped delivers his best film to date with this arresting, coruscating prison drama.
With supreme confidence, Jacques Audiard effortlessly shifts registers in style and tone in a riveting dissection of contemporary France. Tender, lyrical and angry in equal measure, The Prophet is a deeply political film about race, religion, masculinity and the relentless economics of capitalism within the violent microcosm of France’s penal system.
19-year-old Malik (Tahar Rahim) is sent to prison for drunkenly assaulting a policeman. Inside, he tries to steer clear of trouble, but his youthful vulnerability is no match for the Corsican mob, long-term inmates who quickly work to alienate him from his peers and force him to eliminate a man who’s preparing to testify against them. Malik becomes their lapdog, but eventually he will establish his own identity, carving out a dangerous new niche for himself within the prison landscape.