A Prayer before Dawn

You needn’t expect deeper insights into the human psyche from A Prayer Before Dawn. What you see is what you get. And it is rock hard.

A young British junkie ends up in the Thai prison Klong Prem, where he shares a cage with murderers and rapists. His only goal is to survive. Billy Moore (in a razor-sharp performance from Joe Cole) has the advantage that he speaks the language of violence fluently, but it hardly helps his situation. Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire makes the viewers forget that they are watching fiction: the succession of repulsive violence and constant threat – depicted unflinchingly and without a hint of film glamour – will beat you to a pulp.