Good movie, but far from original and has been done many times in the past

Rating: 7/10 (12 March 2017)

Its a fictional story about a kid who wants to become a photographer and grew up in the slums of Brazil. The story is told like a documentary with the main character playing narrator and talking about his experience in the slums known as the "City of God." We follow the lives of himself as well as friends and adversaries from childhood to adulthood. The movie does a good job of conveying how hopeless life can be in certain parts of the world and that sometimes there are no options for those living in such conditions (unless they get extremely lucky like the main character).
In many ways its no different than the myriad of gangster life style movies made here in the USA for the last 30 years. I think we had a movie like this every year back in the 90s. Boyz in the Hood comes to mind, as well as Menace to Society. Still, it is a good movie though a bit overrated. Certainly it does not belong in the top 50 of all time as many people place it. I think the movie seems better to English speakers precisely because it is not in English. Its the same thing that happens when I watch Japanese animation. The characters seem more interesting when you cannot gauge their personality through voice and have to fill in the information from imagination. The minute you hear a dubbed version of the same show, the entire show is usually ruined. This is probably what is happening here.
Another issue is that the movie seemed to drag on a bit too long. The violence also got stale by the end since the movie kept making the same points over and over. Definitely give it a look and if you like it, look up all the great 90s mafia/hood life movies because you will probably like those as well.