Honest, unbelievable, impossible to turn away from.

Rating: 9/10 (18 January 2010)

A film based on facts. A story of crime in the City of God outside of Rio de Janeiro. Drug-related crime in which young people and children are heavily involved. To show it in a film format is not easy, especially since the book is very complex. And making that film truly fantastic is even harder. But it has been done.
The film is not one in which you can gaze at the CGI, or go all 'awww' over a romance, or laugh at the silly slapstick. Here, it is the characters and their stories that make the movie. Nothing to distract you from any flaws or ridiculous or absurd moments. But there needn't be any distractions-the film hits you right in the face with the facts. Because even though it's unbelievable-it is based on a true story/ies. It's brutal, it's honest, it's unbelievable, it's impossible to turn away from and it doesn't stop until the end. And after the credits you are left thinking about what you had just seen, still trying to get your head around the fact that 7 year old boys received guns and were parts of gangs, dying for them. You think about the decisions those people made. Not just Rocket, but every one of them. The answers are not thrown at you-you are required to think.
It's strong. It's thought provoking. It's one of the greatest films of the decade, if not of all time.