A PRAYER BEFORE DAWN

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This real-life kickboxing drama is a full contact contender for sports film of the year.

It’s based on the best-selling account of drug-addicted Scouse boxer Billy Moore, who was sentenced to three years in a Thai prison where he sought redemption in the ring.

Sweating testosterone in the lead role is Peaky Blinders star Joe Cole. He delivers a physically punishing performance with most of his dialogue being aggressively Anglo-Saxon.

Former Thai prisoners are used as actors and filming took place in a real jail, fleshing out the script which is clear-eyed about the squalid conditions and the rape, suicide and extortion suffered by the inmates.

Nimble camerawork puts us in the ring to give the fights a frightening immediacy, and we’re battered by the sound design’s combination of smacks, screams and screeches.

This is as far from Hollywood boxing movies as Bangkok is from Los Angeles, and is an unnervingly immersive, authentic and intense experience. But the real Billy Moore won’t see it, he’s currently in prison again for burglary.