Film of the Year: A Prophet

	We're holding very, very high hopes for this one

We first noticed this at the top of Sight and Sound's best film of 2009 list. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes. It won Best Film at the London Film Festival. And its uber-cool trilby-wearing director, Jacques Audiard, occupied the front cover of the most recent Observer Film Magazine where he gave a brilliantly candid interview about why he made it and why he makes films in the first place. We like him.

Then, just as we were thinking about doing something as proper as we could muster to generate some good Maxim vibes around A Prophet, as fate would have it we got to our desks this morning and the lovely people at Optimum Releasing had sent the new trailer anyway. And it's awesome.

Needless to say, we're holding very high hopes for this one and will be seeing it in its full, unbridled glory on Friday, when we will also be posting our verdict. The trailer is below and the plot goes something like this:

"Nineteen year-old Malik (Tahar Rahim) is condemned to six years in prison. Arriving in jail friendless and alone with no-one to protect him, he soon finds himself drawn into the brutal violence and gang warfare of daily prison life. Taken under the wing of a powerful boss, Malik is initiated into the criminal ranks. Once on the outside, he is entrusted with more and more important missions. But Malik is brave and a fast learner and secretly has his own plans that don’t involve taking orders from anyone else."

Interesting stuff...