A Prophet (2009)
Directed by Jacques Audiard
Sentenced to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena is alone in the world and can neither read nor write. On his arrival at the prison, he seems younger and more brittle than the others detained there. At once he falls under the sway of a group of Corsicans who enforce their rule in the prison. As the 'missions' go by, he toughens himself and wins the confidence of the Corsican group.
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13 films that influenced A Prophet
What critics say influenced A Prophet
If James Toback's petty-criminal tale "Fingers" inspired Jacques Audiard's previous "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," it's Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" that looms over his latest "A Prophet."
That one was very loosely inspired by James Toback's "Fingers," with Harvey Keitel as the vulnerable son of a gangster.
Audiard may have had the stones to tweak Jim Toback 's Fingers in '05 (with the racy The Beat That My Heart Skipped), but here, his approach to cinematic '70s-isms is slavish—and downright corny.
Maybe it's not fair to hold all organized-crime movies up to "The Godfather," but "A Prophet" -- nominated for an Oscar in the foreign-language category and bolstered by Tahar Rahim's sensitive, nuanced central performance -- comes out OK in the comparison.
Malik's character arc recalls Michael Corleone's in "The Godfather," and the inexperienced actor who plays him has an intensity that rivals Pacino's.
Directed and co-written by Jacques Audiard ("The Beat That My Heart Skipped"), "A Prophet" is a gritty, passionate, magnificently crafted film that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as "The Godfather," "GoodFellas" and "Gomorrah."
Some have compared this French crime drama to The Godfather, and though that may be a common critical touchstone, writer-director Jacques Audiard (Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped) manages to replicate its most elusive elementââ¬ânot the dark comedy or the operatic bloodletting but the incremental corruption of a decent man into a willful, coldhearted killer.
If James Toback's petty-criminal tale "Fingers" inspired Jacques Audiard's previous "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," it's Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" that looms over his latest "A Prophet."
Think "GoodFellas," but with Gauloises and accent aigu instead of plates of spaghetti and accent Pesci.
Directed and co-written by Jacques Audiard ("The Beat That My Heart Skipped"), "A Prophet" is a gritty, passionate, magnificently crafted film that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as "The Godfather," "GoodFellas" and "Gomorrah."
A Prophet has been compared to American TV series like Oz for its episodic plot and large cast, but it’s more like a Gallic Goodfellas: thoroughly absorbing, exciting, even poetic.
The film has been compared to The Godfather; its depiction of a youth of decidedly non-royal lineage working his way up the underworld ladder is, in fact, much closer to Goodfellas, and in one rock-accompanied, hyperbolically edited passage, Audiard pays homage to Scorsese’s mastery of the moment when things spin out of control.
The film that follows is as ambitious a crime saga as Goodfellas or perhaps even The Godfather, but condensed into the few years of Malik's sentence.
The opposite of an amoral opportunist like Scarface’s Tony Montana, Malik is a quiet kid who only wants to serve his six years with his head down and his hands kept clean.
Filmmaker Jacques Audiard (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) has rightly called A Prophet his ''anti-Scarface.''
He remade James Toback’s fatalistic fever dream Fingers as the romantic, relatively upbeat The Beat That My Heart Skipped, and in A Prophet, he seems to be turning De Palma’s Scarface inside out and finding the core of self-actualizing inspiration that no climactic hail of bullets could puncture.
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You may remember him from Audiard's " The Beat That My Heart Skipped " (2005), where he played a seedy but confident father who psychically overshadows his son.
If James Toback's petty-criminal tale "Fingers" inspired Jacques Audiard's previous "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," it's Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" that looms over his latest "A Prophet."
The French director Jacques Audiard came to most American filmgoers' attention for 2005's "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," his remake of James Toback's "Fingers" that had the rare distinction of being much better than the original.
None of this will be a surprise to followers of co-writer (with Thomas Bidegain) and director Audiard, a meticulous craftsman whose four previous films, including U.S. art-house successes "Read My Lips" and "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," display a passion for well-constructed, emotionally connected narratives and gripping, visceral storytelling that "A Prophet" takes to even more impressive levels.
Audiard is no stranger to crime stories, having directed the superlative Read My Lips and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, a French remake of James Tobackâs Oedipal drama Fingers.
Directed by the highly regarded French filmmaker Jacques Audiard ( "Read My Lips," "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" ), "A Prophet" might have been just another movie about what prison does to a person, were it not for the elements suggested by the title.
A Prophet gets a much-needed hint of ambiguity in the lead turn by Rahim, an earthy-looking non-pro who sometimes seems to be channeling Enrique Irazoqui 's lumpen prole Christ from The Gospel According to St. Matthew.
But, true to the tradition of crime movies going back to James Cagney in "White Heat," "A Prophet" - which was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign-language film this year and won the grand jury prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival - is taut and brutal, and its scenes of bloodletting often stand out.
Newcomer Tahar Rahim gives Malik the right combination of tough bravado and naivety; watching him evolve is one of the film's chief pleasures; and while the actor may not have the eyes of Emanuelle Devos (Audiard's "Read My Lips") or the energy of Romain Duris ("Heart Skipped"), he's got plenty of boyish charm.
None of this will be a surprise to followers of co-writer (with Thomas Bidegain) and director Audiard, a meticulous craftsman whose four previous films, including U.S. art-house successes "Read My Lips" and "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," display a passion for well-constructed, emotionally connected narratives and gripping, visceral storytelling that "A Prophet" takes to even more impressive levels.
Audiard is no stranger to crime stories, having directed the superlative Read My Lips and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, a French remake of James Tobackâs Oedipal drama Fingers.
Directed by the highly regarded French filmmaker Jacques Audiard ( "Read My Lips," "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" ), "A Prophet" might have been just another movie about what prison does to a person, were it not for the elements suggested by the title.
Laura: Cowriter (with Thomas Bidegain)/director Jacques Audiard, whose last two films ("Read My Lips," "The Beat That My Heart Skipped") were backgrounded in criminal activity, brings the world of the criminal front and center in this epic prison drama.
French writer-director Jacques Audiard has made some terrific thrillers in the past few years, including "Read My Lips" and "The Beat That My Heart Skipped."
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Audiard has always built his movies on his male protagonist’s charisma—Mathieu Kassovitz in A Self-Made Hero (96), Vincent Cassel in Read My Lips (01), Romain Duris in The Beat That My Heart Skipped (05)—but here, he took a gamble on an unknown, inexperienced actor, and it pays off brilliantly.
It says much for the ability of director Jacques Audiard (Read My Lips, The Beat My Heart Skipped and A Self-Made Hero) that he manages to create an emotional intensity that lifts the commonplace on to a higher plain.
Its ending—which I’ve seen read in two completely opposed ways—has in my view a whiff of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) about it, but lacks the drive and sense of being a single piece that marks the Kubrick film.