City of God Critic

Rating: 9/10 (9 June 2012)

I just saw this movie and I think that this is a great movie to watch, due to the rich amount of editing and composing skills that are shown on the movie. This movie creates great suspense with the use of editing; this makes the plot a whole lot interesting.
The plot of the movie is the trafficking of drugs in the City of God and the problems that come with the trafficking of drugs. Some problems that appear on the storyline are extreme violence and crude images, which are caused by the wanting of power and size of territory. The movie at first takes places during the 60's, later on it flash-forwards to the late 70's. The main characters of the movie are Lil Ze, Rocket, Angelica, Carrot, Benny, Shaggy, and Knockout Ned.
The actors that I think outstood from the others were Lil Ze and Rocket, not only because they play a major role in the movie, but because they also play it really well. Lil Ze really looks, talks, and acts like a real gangster. Rocket is the narrator of the whole story behind the City of God, which makes him a very important character in the movie. He also acts really well; his acting comes out fluidly as if he was really the person who he is acting but in real life.
The part that I liked the most in the City of God is a scene where you see the police are seen on one side of the road, then the camera starts tracking its way to the other side of the road and on the other side you see the gang and its members, meanwhile rocket is standing paralyzed in the middle of the road not knowing what to do. This is a great scene because it is done with a perfect combination of suspense and time, if the tracking would have taken longer, then you would make the audience unsurprised, and if you made it shorter then there would be enough suspense.
The major moral/lesson I learned from this movie is that; even though you feel safe and you think you are the "guy of the year" in the city of god, you aren't safe from being thought of getting murdered by someone else. Some people might think that this isn't the moral/lesson, but in my opinion I do belief that this is the moral/lesson.
I think that this movie should be seen by everyone, because it is really interesting to see the ways in which the director uses the real life to produce a replica of the City of God played by the citizen actors. Although everyone should see it, it does contain crude scenes of killings, making it harder to be seen by everyone. The MPAA rating for the movie is R, because of strong brutal violence, sexuality, drug content and language.
I rate this movie an 9/10.
Johnny White is a high school junior that likes to watch movies in his leftover time and write critics about them. He likes to play basketball, watch TV, play games and eat.