Amazing story further enhanced by the fact that it happened

Rating: 10/10 (28 October 2004)

My first milestone at IMDb occurs (50th review) with this amazing movie. The plot of City of God revolves around Rocket (an aspiring photographer) as he grows up in the slums of Rio De Janeiro and the events that occur there. The cinematography is simply amazing, from the various "action shots", to the way the story is broken up into anachronous mini stories. It is also amazing how intertwined all the stories are. You get an idea of the cinematography from the opening scene where a chicken escapes from a restaurant and a whole gang of people go chasing after it. The scene is comical at first and then turns serious very quickly as the chicken ends up in front of Rocket with a gang of approximately 30 members armed with guns on one side and the police on the other side (Rocket and the chicken caught in the middle). This movie is very intense, but feels realistic. The violence does not seem over the top but indicative of a plausible situation. The movie is also wrought with social critique : from the drugs use, to the crime (murder,theft), to the poverty and the widespread corruption of the slums in Brazil (and the similarity to slums everywhere). There are similarities to other movies including Scarface (1983), Boyz in the Hood and Menace II Society. This movie seems more gritty, more real than those movies. This might be due to the fact that those movies dealt with adults and young adults (16-35 year old), while this movie deals primarily with children. The ending is a mixed bag of optimism and pessimism (good things do happen, but also history does repeat itself). This movie MUST be seen.