France/2009/154 mins/subtitled/18. Dir: Jacques Audiard. With Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif.
Winning the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, the director of The Beat That My Heart Skipped returns with this brutal look at the life of Malik, a young French Arab who finds himself in prison with no allies. Drawn into the dominant Corsican mafia after being forced into murdering a fellow prisoner, his apparent naivetyallows him the freedom to build his own criminal underworld while passing through the thick network of racially divided gangs. Audiard regular Niels Arestrup is chilling as the Corsican crime boss while Tahar Rahim revels in an intense performance as the complex and irrepressible Malik.
"The unsparing atmosphere – and Tahar Rahim’s star-making turn – will sweep you along" - Total Film