Too much of everything

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

One of my all time favorites.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

No, this is not a religious film about prophets. In fact, it is a grim and grisly film about criminals. About 95% of it takes place in a French prison at Brécourt in Normandy. Why we should want to spend a very long time indeed (155 minutes) watching men in their cells and their exercise yard I do not know. They are killers, thieves, and gangsters. This film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, so I thought I should see what it was like. Jacques Audiard, the director, is a very brilliant French director, and he has applied his usual talents to make this film compelling viewing. He is one of those people who could persuade us to watch paint dry, and frankly that would have been more edifying. The acting is very good. Niels Arestrup is pretty scary and totally convincing as a psychotic gang boss who is 'running' the prison guards. The prisoners are divided between 'the Corsicans' and 'the Arabs', both of which groups hate each other and beat each other up all the time. The lead character is a young Arab excellently played with convincing naivete by Tahar Rahim. His wife, the actress Leila Bekhti, also appears in the film in a minor role. Everybody does a good job. The film is very well made. But why bother? It is about disgusting, brutal, vile, and perverted people. Somebody needs to take Audiard over his knee and give him a good spanking. (Or would he like that?) He made such a marvellous film entitled READ MY LIPS (2001, see my review listed under 'S' for its French title, SUR MES LEVRES). Why did he then go down into the gutter and make a film about these horrible people?

(Flash Review)A 19 year old boy has just started a six-year stint in a French prison and is immediately in a kill or be killed situation. Take out someone a prison gang wants dead or he'll be taken out. How he handles that situation sparks a side of him that emboldens him to succeed in the political games of prison and the gang structures. Watch to see how far he'll climb the ranks and if or how he'll fall as Scarface did spectacularly. This film is gritty and real feeling with an engrossing story that smoothly blends in key scenes amongst the daily life of that prison. Good character development and there is no main story objective so you watch the protagonist's daily challenges unfold as the story develops. Very effective piece of French cinema.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILER First of all, the cinematography, scenario, thrill musics that reflects the atmosphere of the prison was excellent. Other than that, Audiard studied the history of religions very well. And, this movie is not about a man goes to prison and challenges to survive. This movie must watch to be considered all the religions and prophets at the history. In the beginning, Cesar Luciani should be considered the god of the prison and Malik is his eyes, ears, arms, legs to spread his words to people of prison and outside. At the beginning of the film, you can see how he uses Malik cruelly. And, Malik had no choice except doing what he is told for surviving. That is his fate. But then, he is got a revelation from the man's ghost(or angel whatsoever) he killed. He learns to read, learns new languages, communicate with everyone surrounding him. When the movie ends, he gets revenge from Luciano and becomes the prophet of outside of the prison. The movie has some bold references from Bible, Quran, Tevrat, and lives of Muhammed, Jesus, and some other known prophets. All in all, a perfect crime-drama about the birth of a prophet.

This is the first movie I saw of 2016. I certainly hope that it's not prophetic. I think that movies depicting people being locked up in prison hold us in rapt attention because most of us have conscious and sub- conscious fears of being locked up. I certainly identified with the prisoner in this movie because of my fear of being locked up and my fear of people in authority. They're all copies of an authority figure which my father represented to me. Every scene shows the prisoner interacting with authority figures and throws him into deeper complications with authority. His first struggle against authority is striking a blow at a policeman. For this he is convicted to spend the next 6 years in prison. Here he encounter a worse authority figure than the policeman, who is a criminal authority figure, namely of the underworld who makes harsher demands on his obedience than the authority of the law. His obedience to underworld authority ends when he's ordered to murder a Moslem leader. This and the illness of his best friend, also a Mowlem bring him to a realization that there is, after all only one authority to whom he must show obedience and that is Allah. In fact this movie shows the path followed by a prophet according to the Koran: 'We hear, and we obey. We seek Thy forgiveness, Our Lord, and to Thee is the end of all journeys.'" (2:285) The message of the movie is obey and seeing that you must obey someone it might as well be Allah, otherwise you'll find yourself having to obey murderous commands given to you by law enforcement personnel or by criminals.