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100A new crime classic.
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100The best performance in the film is by Arestrup as Cesar. 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.
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100If Malik doesn't remind you of Al Pacino's Michael Corleone on his journey from innocence to corruption in "The Godfather" saga, well . . . he should. A Prophet is similarly, startlingly momentous.
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One caveat: At the risk of sounding sexist, let me say A Prophet is an unreservedly male film. Female characters are few and far between, and when they do appear, they pretty much fall into either one of two categories – les mamans ou les putains.
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100More than anything else, however, director Jacques Audiard's gritty, grab-you-by-the-shirtfront film is a mob movie -- a really, really good mob movie. Think "GoodFellas," but with Gauloises and accent aigu instead of plates of spaghetti and accent Pesci.
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100Essential viewing for art-film buffs and crime-flick fans, but also for anyone who's looking for a great story, terrific acting and masterful filmmaking.
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100Why do we care? Because never before have the steps to thugdom, as depressing as that destination may be, been so rigorously detailed, neither romanticized nor negated. Don't miss.
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100A Prophet is the kind of film that makes you remember why going to the movies can be a thrilling experience.
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100There's also no romanticizing on the part of the director, who proceeds with calm, unshowy attentiveness (even in the midst of scenes of violence), creating a stunning portrait of an innately smart survivor for whom prison turns out to be a twisted opportunity for self-definition.
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100It's a highly original film made in a familiar context, and an exciting moviegoing experience you shouldn't miss.
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100To borrow a marketing phrase from another, very different film, A Prophet really is the movie that reminds you why you love the movies. Especially movies like this one.
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100One of those rare films in which the moral stakes are as insistent and thought through as the aesthetic choices.
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Uncompromising in its style, story and characterizations.
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91Long and sometimes grueling, but it never feels indulgent or excessive. In order to be subtle about the horrifying transformation he records, Audiard needs to let it unfold slowly, so that only when we reach the end can we see Malik as a new man who has come unimaginably -- and terribly -- far.
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91A 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. It's a full evening's entertainment.
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88A Prophet pushes its protagonist into circumstances he did not choose but in which he watches and learns and kills and eventually becomes all he can be, albeit criminally. Certainly Muslims living in France have embraced the movie and Malik, played by Rahim
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88Most prison movies are about escape or survival. A Prophet (Un Prophete) is about the creation of a consciousness. This one, too, could have been called "An Education."
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88Audiard delivers on and exceeds the promise he evinced in that earlier film, drawing viewers into the densely layered, ruthless ecology of a French prison and, against all odds, making them not mind staying there awhile.
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88It's imperfect, but it's daring, bold, and from a director who isn't scared of anything.
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88Strip away the French and Arabic subtitles, the French-prison setting and the Muslim-messianic title, and A Prophet, opening Friday at The Enzian, would still be the grittiest prison thriller in years.
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What's most immediately remarkable about the film is the raw intensity of its hyper-realistic encounters, hugely enhanced by the superb acting of newcomer Rahim.
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80Rahim and Arestrup are both so outstanding that if this were an English-language film, they'd probably be nominated for Oscars, too.
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80A modern French crime epic where the smudges and crossings out do not diminish the passages of great dreamlike power.
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Whether audiences have the stomach for 150 minutes behind bars remains debatable, but there is no denying the persuasive power of a film that takes no prisoners and pulls no punches.
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80Some have compared this French crime drama to "The Godfather," and though that may be a common critical touchstone, writer-director Jacques Audiard manages to replicate its most elusive element, not the dark comedy or the operatic bloodletting but the incremental corruption of a decent man into a willful, coldhearted killer.
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75If his two previous films suggested a director dipping a few toes in dark waters, Un Prophete marks the moment when Audiard took the plunge.
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70Rahim is an exciting, unpredictable presence, and Arestrup's César has a stature that's nearly Shakespearean.
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Sold to the global arthouse market as the "French Scorsese," Audiard does know his genre. A Prophet, the director has said, is the "anti-Scarface."
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70Jacques Audiard's film, which lasts two and a half hours, maintains an unflagging urgency, stalling only when the double-dealing grows too dense.
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63A compelling piece of naturalistic filmmaking, claustrophobic and thought-provoking.
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Positive: 23 out of 24
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Mixed: 1 out of 24
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Negative: 0 out of 24
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