A Prayer Before Dawn review – grim, primal prison drama

21 July 2018 02:00
A fact-based story of an English drug addict surviving jail in Thailand through boxing is an intense assault on the sensesFrench director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire adapts English addict and boxer William “Billy” Moore’s 2014 memoir about the three years he spent in Chiang Mai and Klong Prem, two of Thailand’s toughest prisons. A Prayer Before Dawn borrows its name from the book, though the source material’s subtitle, A Nightmare in Thailand, would be more fitting.Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders) is a bubbling volcano of unexpressed emotion as Moore, arrested, presumably, for possession of drugs while on holiday in Thailand. The film isn’t interested in detailing his backstory. Instead, it seizes the moment of his arrest and zeroes in on the dizzying assault of suffering that follows. Sauvaire’s film is unblinkingly, exhaustingly violent, the ordeals on show grimy with blood, sweat, shit, piss, vomit and semen. Men are tortured over loudspeakers, gang-raped, pummelled within an inch of their lives for a hit of ya ba, a highly addictive form of crystal meth. The prison’s boxing team is Moore’s only solace; when he enters the ring for his final fight, it’s wearing a bamboo halo (or Jesus’s crown of thorns). Related: Joe Cole: ‘I was ready to deliver a kicking’ Continue readingread full article

Source: TheGuardian