Elite Squad, The - Aka: Tropa De Elite Details

Real life in the slums of Rio

I saw this film in Brazil last year when it came out there. I only understand basic portuguese and there were no subtitles but i was still glued to the story all the way through.

In my opinion, this is better than 'City of God'

It gives a real and pretty honest look at the situation in the favelas in Rio, allowing you to take a look at things from both the perspective of the 'traffickers' or drug dealers, and the police, who risk their lives for a job that pays pennies.

Amazing.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Down and dirty in Brazil

You'll probably enjoy this film if you like shoot-em-ups. You'll enjoy it even more if you're not much bothered who's shooting up whom, or why, because for much of the film that's very obscure. There are no goodies in this movie, just different shades and types of baddies, and they shoot each other up quite impartially and with an impressive range of weaponry. There are the drugs dealers, who of course are the formal baddies. Then there are the rottenly corrupt Brazilian police. And there is the Elite Squad, the black-clad 'special forces' of the police, who pride themselves on their incorruptibility, but just in case you think they're real goodies, it turns out they go in for torturing, beating and shooting all and sundry, in the hope that they'll catch the occasional drug dealer. All in all, not a bundle of laughs. The director chose a complex way of telling his story (a long flashback that we catch up with about the middle of the movie, with the story being told by a voice-over), and I think he just couldn't handle that complexity. The result was that events were very difficult to follow. Also, the film never really makes up its mind whether it's a social commentary or just a flash-bang-crash thriller, and in the end it falls between these two stools.