Based on a true story, this film shows just how incredibly bad the Thailand prison system is. To be honest, I think that even though they do show pretty horrible conditions, I don't think they are accurate enough when depicting the horrible conditions that exist inside a Thai jail because Thailand likely wouldn't allow that.
Joe Cole plays the true-life role of Billy Moore, a British expat in Thailand who gets wrapped up in a pretty nasty drug called "Ya-ba" and this results in him going to prison. Although this is changing, the Thai government still has a very aggressive stance towards drugs in the courts. A minor possession arrest can result in going to jail for years and just like in other countries with "tough laws on drugs" the penitentiaries are packed with people that are guilty of exactly that.
People in USA often complain about the "deplorable" state of the prisons there and how the USA has the highest prison population (per capita) in the world. These people are correct about the 2nd thing but USA prisons can be called luxury hotels compared to the ones over here in Thailand as well as all of the surrounding countries. They don't really concern themselves with things such as having "enough room" for more prisoners or certain nuances like ethical treatment of said prisoners. This movie shows this but like I said in the first paragraph - as graphic and horrible as this prison is, I don't think they actually showed how truly awful and soul-crushing a jail can be here because if they made it look too bad, the Thai government might not have allowed filming. They are known to censor stuff a bit here.
At times this film is difficult to watch because it is so graphic. Boxing and prison horror aside, this film also very nicely presents how horrible a situation being a "stranger in a strange land" can be because Billy speaks almost no Thai. I am near fluent in Thai, but I don't speak prison Thai so I really struggled to understand the bits that are not in English (which is most of the film.) However, it is presented in an artistic fashion intentionally.... the director wants to put you in Billy's head to see how frustrating it can be to be surrounded, daily, by people that not only are pretty awful people, but to not even be able to communicate with any of them.
Most of the Thai is not translated, and this is intentional.
This film had a limited release and financial data is not easy to find. However, it was an official selection at Cannes, and this is quite an accomplishment in itself.
On my usual scale I give A Prayer before Dawn an overall rating of ....
