An intense and brutal film, showcasing a spellbinding performance by Londoner Joe Cole.

It's the true-story tribulations of a young, British, heroin addicted boxer (Billy Moore, based on his memoir) locked inside a Thai prison. It's like Rocky meets Midnight Express, but not in the Rocky Express way, more in the Midnight Rocky sense.

Basically, we watch a man get beat up on one way or another for over two hours, and while it's a grueling watch, the romance involving a prison transsexual ('ladyboy') was handled with decorum and respect.

There is nothing new to see here, but what you get is hard hitting and packs a punch. When all is said and done, it's not the sort of film you 'like', it's the sort of film you experience.

The whole "fighting" plot felt like Never Back Down in a Prison, however the first half was truly outstanding - the feeling of isolation the film portrays kept me glued to the screen, especially the use of the lack of english was really powerful (this movie would've been half as powerful if I understood Thai or there were subtitles). For those who have traveled around the world, they know that helpless feeling of not speaking the language (praise god I've never had to experience prison). All-in-all, 5 for plot, 9 for impacting the audience's emotion. A must experience film.

Not for the faint of heart, "A prayer before dawn" is a very powerful drama about drug abuse, boxing, and Thai prisons.
Extremely well made, it will keep you riveted to your seat from the beginning!

This movie was hard to watch. Sometimes I forget that this is real life in jail. At that same time, we can't feel sorry for them, because jail isn't supposed to be a country club. Regardless of where you are in the world, prison is horrible, and it's best to avoid it at all costs!!

Good movie, very violent and the main actor share with the spectator all emotions.
The main issue of this movie is language but I think it's to show the distress of the character in foreign country.
The story seems to be incomplete sometimes.

Not a better movie of the decade but good movie to watch.

An outstanding piece of misery porn.
It uses every trick in the book to put you in the shoes of this characters, and it’s very effective. Excellent visuals and sound design, the director clearly has a lot of faith in visual storytelling (very few exposition dumps; great call to avoid using subtitles) and it goes in directions you don’t see coming.
Joe Cole’s performance is amazing (his character gains so much depth just by the acting choices he’s making) and the fact that they used real inmates for the supporting cast adds a lot of grit, authenticity and realism.
There’s not really a deeper meaning to it, but as a purely visceral, emotional experience, this certainly did a lot for me. I have to commend it for that, because a film this bleak has a lot of pitfalls (feeling over the top to the point of parody; trying way too hard to be edgy; feeling monotonous; etc.), and it somehow managed to avoid all of them.

9/10

Brutal yet shot through with sensitivity. This is a good film, with another knockout performance from Cole.

This is another solid release by A24 ultimately this was a very slow movie, it dragged a bit but it was still very good.

I thought (Joe Cole) punched a alright performance in this nothing brilliant but alright film that was brutal at times with plenty of action.

The true story of an addict in Thailand who faces a 3 year jail sentence and becomes a Muay Thai champion to deal with it. It's very well done, and Joe Cole puts in a more than decent turn as the lead. As great as the fight scenes were (one in particular is very realistically filmed), there were a bit too many of them. This is just my personal preference - I'm not a fan of too much fighting as it tends to distract from any plot, but in this film, this was the plot, so I was kind of on to a loser already. That said it's good to know the story of this pan out as I hadn't read anything about it beforehand. It's also worth reading up on Billy Moore's life since - as the film is not the end of the line