A Prophet (2009)

A Prophet is the story of Malik, a young offender who is placed in Prison for 6 years for assaulting a Police officer. He begins his time in Prison as a naive young man who appears to be both afraid and unsure of himself. This soon changes as shortly after his start he is asked to murder another prisoner. He commits this act not exactly voluntarily, despite the promises of protection and benefits, as like any sane human murder is not on his mind. However the threat that if he does not commit the act that he himself will be killed soon changes his mind, and after the realisation that the Corsicans who have asked him to kill run the prison, as opposed to the guards, he nervously goes ahead with the assassination.

There is little new with the main story of this film. After killing the first victim in prison he hangs around with the Corsicans, acting as their servant for the most part, though not getting into the inner circle due to the fact that he is an Arab. After most of the Corsicans are released from prison he becomes a close associate of the chief of the crime syndicate and begins working his own criminal enterprises alongside those of his boss. Added to this he begins straddling the worlds between the Corsicans and the Arabs, both of whom cannot accept him fully as they believe he is a member of the opposite clan. These are stories that in one sense or another have been tried and tested. This is not to say though that this film lacks originality. In fact I am struggling to think of a gangster/crime film that has both excited and engaged me at quite the level that this one did.

Part of this is down to the cast who are universally superb. Tahar Rahim probably deserves a special mention, not least because he is the lead in the film, and he perfectly transports you on the journey of the young man going through enormous changes to his personality. He is a very smart character, and you can see the comparisons that are often made between him and Michael Corleone from the Godfather, the initial reluctance toward the life of crime leading to being more successful than those who got you into it simply by playing the game better than they.

Musically this film has it bang on. With a mixture of a composed soundtrack as well as songs from popular culture, whether it's the subtle bass of Talk Talk or the booming blues Rap from Nas the music fits the picture to a tee and elevates certain scenes into greatness. This film arrived into my lap with little expectations, I knew not what the plot was nor anything about the cast or crew, and perhaps because I had no expectations of it, it left me filled with joy and a strong desire to watch it again. Like I say, not an original story, but pulled off in a way that felt fresh and new. Very Strong cinema.