Styalized brilliance in a thrilling and gripping journey. Ditch the Hollywood formula. YOU WILL NOT LEAVE YOUR SEAT

Rating: 10/10 (13 June 2005)

I am an avid user of IMDb. When I see a good film I will give it a good vote. When I see an excellent film I may just give it a ten. "City of God" is unlike anything I have ever seen. This film takes the boundaries of excellence and destroys them--it is the only film that has inspired me to compose a comment. Take brilliant directing, a captivating story and excellent cinematography, and you will get "City of God".
"City of God" opens in the chaotic slums of Rio de Genero. The audience is brilliantly thrown into the madness as a mob of gun wielding gangsters vigorously pursue a run- away chicken. Rocket, who narrates the film, finds himself caught between the mob, urging him to nab the chicken, and a squad of intervening police officers. The confusion and dilemma between opposing sides in the first scene come to define the film.
Right when the audience begins to ask "why?" it is thrown back in time and carried through the history of the City of God, following the exploits of rocket and other "hoods", otherwise known as hoodlums by other residents. Possibly the most fascinating character, if I were forced to choose one, would be L'il Zé, who was formerly referred to as L'il Dice. L'il Zé is a perfect example of weakness and tyranny. The impressionable child rises to power in the devastated slums, only to be destroyed by his own design and his own self-conscious. He is the victim and the criminal, the manipulated and the manipulator, all rolled into one beautifully portrayed mess,
Perhapse the most compelling feature of "City of God" is that the force of good is seemingly absent. Each character is sucked into the cycle of horror and is kept there spinning. There is no Hollywood ending or simple solution as the cyclone continues to ravish the city in a new wave of gang violence. While the Hood ring leaders die in combat, a new order of violence is born in the eager convictions of the misguided youth. Ditch the formula, show predictable cinema the cold shoulder and enjoy the brilliance of "City of God".