A great movie with well-written characters and powerful scenes of violence

Rating: 8/10 (15 August 2015)

City of God is a very violent, moving, and heartbreaking movie about gangs in the slums of Rio De Janeiro.
This movie details how crime affects the people who live in the slums of Rio De Janeiro. Rocket has witnessed violence by both gangs and he wants out of it but he finds that he can't escape.
This movie does a great job with making itself look violent. I think that the main reason why this movie is so hard to watch is because most of the violence is happening to kids. It can be hard to watch so many kids brutally die off so young in their lives. Slumdog Millionaire did this too but I think that this movie did it better because it displayed violence more brutally with greater buildup involved.
The different backstories are all entertaining. They are violent, well-written, heartbreaking, and even a bit funny every now and then. They show us how all the tales are all connected to each other. This movie is non-linear because of that.
Nowadays, it's hard to find a good child actor but many of the actors in this movie carried the movie with expertise. Most of them were unknown too which made their acting performances even more unexpectedly good.
This movie gives nods to Quentin Tarantino by featuring techniques such as time-jumping, freeze-framing, and texts. It drew inspiration from Pulp Fiction and Goodfellas but this is original in its own way. It has its own techniques which it featured throughout the film.
In conclusion, this is a very well-done film. It's violent and it also has great characters and backstories. This isn't for people who are sensitive but it will appeal to you if you like violence in movies.