A Prayer Before Dawn (2017) on Netflix
Billy Moore, a British boxer and heroin addict, is locked in Klong Prem prison after his arrest in Thailand. Keng runs his crowded cell, and violence is part of the routine.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb6.8/1029,456 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
Arrested in Thailand on charges of possessing stolen goods and a firearm, Billy Moore, a young British boxer and heroin addict, is sent to Klong Prem prison, where he is quickly shown the brutality of the place. He is put in a crowded cell that Keng rules and made to sleep beside a corpse, and he witnesses an inmate being raped at knifepoint. After he bites a corrections officer who refuses him painkillers, he is punished. He tries to befriend Fame, a transgender prisoner, but his interactions with the inmates and the staff stay tense, and he slips deeper into drug use.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Prayer Before Dawn (2017)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film's climactic fight was shot in the courtyard of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines, the prison known for its "Dancing Inmates", and several of the center's real inmates took part in the shoot.
- Thai authorities refused to let the production film inside the real Chiang Mai Central Prison and Klong Prem Central Prison, where Billy Moore served his sentences, so the prison scenes were shot at Nakhon Pathom prison, which closed in 2014 and is now a museum.
- Charlie Hunnam was set to star as Billy Moore in October 2014, with Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire directing a screenplay by Jonathan Hirschbein and Nick Saltrese for producers Rita Dagher, Sol Papadopoulos and Roy Boutler; in October 2015 Joe Cole joined the cast, replacing Hunnam.
SPOILER
The film's closing titles reveal the real Billy Moore's fate: after serving three years in Thailand he was moved to a UK prison and freed on amnesty by the King of Thailand in October 2010, and he has since devoted his life to helping addicts.
