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Three years in the making, Joe Cole starrer A Prayer Before Dawn will start its theatrical release this weekend. The A24 title, which debuted at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, is based on a non-fiction book written by Billy Moore, played by Cole in the feature, which opens in select cities Friday. The Wolfpack filmmaker Crystal Moselle returns with her narrative feature debut, Skate Kitchen, which premiered at Sundance where Magnolia Pictures caught the film in January. The film follows a group of young women who she met on the subway in a story that has some parallel to their real lives. And Oscilloscope is opening Madeline’s Madeline with newcomer Helena Howard along with Molly Parker and Miranda July. Also a Sundance debut, the company said it has been championed by critics, which it hopes will overcome skepticism by some exhibitors. The company said its trailer, however, has reached ‘cult’ status.

There are boxing movies, there are jailbird dramas and there are hell-and-back memoir adaptations — A Prayer Before Dawn throws all three of these genres into a dingy cell together, forcing them to either make nice or beat each other senseless in a survival-of-the-fittest showdown. Thankfully, filmmaker Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Bosch-like take on Billy Moore’s autobiography of life in a Thai prison allows each of these distinct narrative types to eventually bleed all over each other, sometimes literally. Moore (Joe Cole) was a Liverpudlian ex-pat living in Bangkok, fighting amateur Muay Thai bouts.

Stars: Joe Cole, Pornchanok Mabklang, Panya Yimmumphai, Nicolas Shake, Billy Moore, Somlock Kamsing, Sakda Niamhom, Sura Sirmalai, Chaloemporn Sawatsuk, Komsan Polsan | Written by Jonathan Hirschbein, Nick Saltrese | Directed by Jean- Stephane Sauvaire

Jean- Stephane Sauvaire’s A Prayer Before Dawn is a vortex of nihilistic self-sabotage, orchestrated in a prism of oppressive human behaviour. It is fundamentally flawless in its production. Cinematographer David Ungaro utilises a form of a documentarian approach that subjects the audience to an unflinching atmospheric and quite frankly, a torturous horror of psychological and physical deterioration. The story of Billy Moore is primal. It is desolate. It is utterly compelling to even fortify and comprehend a belief that this is non-fiction let alone a true story that Moore survived to tell the tale.

The fractured psyche of broken and corrupted individuals is not a strikingly new or original cinematic concept, most notably and widely acknowledged as...

"Just give me this one chance..." A24 has released a second official trailer for a film titled A Prayer Before Dawn, shot by a French filmmaker in a real Thai prison starring real inmates. This played at the Cannes Film Festival last year, but has been awaiting release from A24 ever since, finally in theaters next month. Based on a true story, the film is about a young English boxer who is thrown into prisons in Thailand, where he fights back and trains to be a competitor in a vicious Muay Thai boxing tournament. Joe Cole stars as Billy Moore, the one white man in this Thai world, who has nothing but boxing. The cast includes Vithaya Pansringarm, Panya Yimmumphai, Nicolas Shake, Pornchanok Mabklang, plus the real Billy Moore in a cameo role. This looks intense and riveting, looking forward to checking it out sometime soon. Here's the second trailer...

"I've got not family, no money, just give me this one chance." A24 has debuted an intense, badass official trailer for a film titled A Prayer Before Dawn, shot by a French filmmaker in a real Thai prison starring real inmates. This film is about a young English boxer who is thrown into prisons in Thailand, where he fights back and trains to be a competitor in a vicious Muay Thai boxing tournament. Joe Cole stars as Billy Moore, the one white man in this Thai world, apparently based on a true story. The cast includes Vithaya Pansringarm, Panya Yimmumphai, Nicolas Shake, Pornchanok Mabklang, plus the real Billy Moore in a cameo role. This looks frickin' awesome! I can't believe I have missed this film until now. And A24's trailer is exciting, building up the intensity right until the last second. I actually can't wait to see this. Here's...

One giant bulging vein of a movie, “A Prayer Before Dawn” is only nominally about boxing. It’s also only nominally about its main character, and he’s in nearly every shot. Based on the eponymous 2014 memoir by drug addict-turned-convict-turned-champion boxer Billy Moore, the film is less interested in the how’s and why’s of the real figure’s story than it is in orchestrating one of the most unrelentingly intense symphonies of testosterone and rage ever put onscreen.

Jean-Stephane Sauvaire’s film is not so much the story of a fighter as it is a story that wants to fight you.

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The film lets you know it’s up to something different right from the start. It opens on a set of very familiar images of a fighter wrapping his hands,...