A PROPHET (UN PROPHÈTE) .World Cinema

Like the Depression-era gangster classics PUBLIC ENEMY and LITTLE CAESAR, Jacques Audiard’s story follows a disadvantaged young man as he masters the codes, rules and tactics of professional criminals. A PROPHET unfolds in prison, amidst a little-known conflict between an older Corsican gang with fraying ties to the Italian mob, and the Arab-Muslim immigrants who, long abused in France, are on the rise. Malik (played with preternatural alertness and vitality by Tahar Rahim) is the illiterate 19-year-old “dirty Arab” hero whose feral survival instincts, nervous intelligence and bouts of luck make him an irresistible force. Niels Arestrup is memorable as his protector and mentor Luciani. And the Kafkaesque prison, where brutality erupts without signal or reason, serves as the film’s immovable object. The intensity of the conflict makes Audiard’s film a startling, compelling take on the gangster genre.