A Prayer Before Dawn

Dir: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire

2018

*****

Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s 2018 adaption of Billy Moore’s harrowing biography is the year’s most overlooked film, featuring the year’s most overlooked performance. A Prayer Before Dawn tells the true story of Moore who was a British national living in Thailand. After years of drugs, crime and many years in prison, Moore got clean thanks to a drug rehabilitation scheme run by the last UK prison he was in. Once released he promised himself a better life and decided to move to Thailand where his money would go further and he could enjoy a good life away from ghosts left behind in the UK. He taught English for a time and found work as a boxer and a stuntman. He was Sylvester Stallone’s stunt double in 2008’s Rambo, the fourth Rambo film that was set in Burma but filmed in Thailand. Unfortunately old habits die hard and Moore found himself in the wrong crowd and developed another drug habit. While fighting in illegal underground boxing matches he was hooked on Yaba – a highly addictive mix of methamphetamine plus caffeine. He was arrested in his apartment when several stolen mobile phones and sim cards were discovered there and he was given a three year sentence. Over the first two years he was transferred to several different prisons but in the film we only see one. Moore’s previous life isn’t explored at all and we are never told why he is arrested. Right from the beginning, screenwriters Jonathan Hirschbein and Nick Saltrese choose to provide as little exposition as possible. We learn virtually nothing about Moore (Joe Cole), before he’s arrested and trown into prison. We’re given no information whatsoever, no narration and no opportunity for Moore to explain. In all the other ‘locked up abroad’ prison dramas that I can think of, our protagonist generally has another inmate to confide his troubles to but here he is on his own, the solitary white-skinned westerner in a prison full of dark-skined and heavily tattooed criminals who don’t like forgeners. Within hours of arriving at the prison, Moore witnesses rape and suiside and spends his first night next to a courpse. The other prisoners shout and jostle him but neither he nor the audience know what they saying. I think the lack of subtitles here are very important as we feel Moore’s isolation and the fear that comes with it. Sure, Moore is tough but he is way outnumbered. Moore manages to keep his drug habit going, scoring free hits from some of the prisoners who assume he will pay them back and who are happy to open channels believing that he is a rich forgener who will soon have plenty of money sent to him by family. The truth was though that Moore hadn’t told anyone he was in a Thai prison and there was no money. A certain guard knew of his addiction and would supply yaba for a short while to build up a dependency and then ask him to perform tasks for him. He asks that Moore beat up the Muslim in-mates for him, suggesting that they are not real Muslims for committing crime (the guard is Muslim). Moore beats up two Muslim men after scoring but nearly beats them to death. Once sober, he is racked with guilt and realises that he needs to sort himself out if he is ever going to survive his time there. The first half of the movie is a brutal fish out of water story, but second half however gives a glimmer of hope as we follow Moore’s discovery of a prison boxing team. Suddenly he sees a way through the tough prison life and something he can focus on. Boxing was Moore’s way of disciplining himself and it would be again. At first the other boxes don’t respect him but when they see just how passionate he is they get behind him. The film is half prison drama and half boxing picture and similar to films that have come before covering both subjects but A Prayer Before Dawn is somehow different. The camera stays close to the action when focusing on Moore’s pain and then pans out to show his isolation. The score is more of a melodic dirge, rather than a rousing piece of classic music. Nothing is glorified and you can almost smell the squalor and deprivation. It’s not a blow-by-blow adaption of Moore’s book but it covers all the truths, just in a different order and missing out his history entirely. It’s a raw and powerful drama and quite brutal at times. There is no romanticism about Moore’s time in the prison, his drug taking or in being a victim. There isn’t even a big release/prison break moment to enjoy, only the fact that he’s got through one challenge and now on to the next. Not that the film isn’t rewarding – it is – as it is refreshing. I thought Joe Cole was exceptional in the lead role, giving the character a subdued and very uncharismatic persona. It is clear that he went head first into the role, giving it everything he had and producing a remarkably realistic portrayal of a man alone trapped in hell. His performance needed to be raw and robotic and not theatrical or methodical and he did it perfectly. His performance wasn’t the sort that gets awards which is ridiculous because his was by far one of the best performances of the year – and the past few years in truth. Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s direction is superb and in using authentic locations and ex-inmates, the film is eerily real and brutally honest. This is  a film that deserves far more acknowledgment than it has so far received.