Good, although slightly overrated

Rating: 8/10 (4 October 2005)

"City of God"/"Cidade de Deus" tells the true (?) story of youth gangs in the titular city, a favela (slum) outside of Rio de Janeiro, in the sixties and seventies.
The one thing that becomes immediately apparent is that "City" is an amazingly well made movie. Even though many of the actors are inexperienced, the acting is generally excellent, and the movie is beautifully shot and very stylish, told in a semi-chronological way, with some flashbacks and some foreshadowing.
Yet no matter how stylish and flashy it is, make no mistake that this is a serious and realistic movie. The grim life in the favela and the often hopeless situations of its inhabitants become very clear, and it's not surprising that many of them, including very young children, resorted to crime.
The movie is brutally honest and uncompromising in its portrayal of the life of the youth gangs: violence is everywhere, and it's shown in fairly graphic ways. Crazy and impulsive gang leaders shoot innocent bystanders and even their friends without even a glimpse of remorse, and little boys act like fully-fledged gangsters and unscrupulously kill each other. It certainly isn't easy to watch, but it is both very impressive and very unsettling, especially since its based on actual events and actual people.
In spite of all this praise, there are a couple of things that could have been done better. First of all, the story is told through the eyes of Rocket, a boy who manages to stay out of (most) of the gang violence and manages to become a photographer. Unfortunately Rocket is a fairly boring character, and his story, while remarkable, isn't told very interestingly. In contrast, the main gang leader, Zhe, while obviously completely crazy, is a lot more fascinating.
Also, this is an ensemble movie with a very large cast, and not all characters are fleshed out very well. With so many characters, many of whom look and sound a lot like each other (also due to the fact that most scenes are fairly poorly lit, and many of the action is very frantic), it's often quite hard to figure out what exactly is happening and to whom, let alone really care about it. It's not a huge problem since in part the movie is supposed to be a bit disorienting, but one might wonder whether it wouldn't have been better to focus on a smaller number of characters.
That being said, I found "Cidade de Deus" to be a very good movie, although the 18th position it holds on the IMDb top list might be a bit overrated. Still, it's a very well-made movie, that tackles a serious subject in a very uncompromising and honest way, and several small shortcomings don't really distract from that.
**** out of *****