Brazilian Gangster movie lacks humanity

Rating: 6/10 (6 October 2002)

Once again an entrepreneur has managed to turn the misery of
the Brazilian slums into an exportable commodity.
Slickly packaged within the ultra violent veneer of the post
Tarantino gangster genre City of God is replete with bullets,
bodies, and just enough flesh to keep the international distributors
happy.
It's an epic covering decades and including a good portion of the
Brazilian population. It's also aggressively aware of the latest
vogue of digital effects and story telling digressions (ala Guy
Ritchie's Snatch). Everywhere the camera and narrator
backpeddle through the third world carnage. At one level, the roller
coaster pretense is intriguing. However, given the reality of the
social catastrophe lying at City of God's core the movie is
surprisingly trite. If you didn't know the police in slums of Brazil
were corrupt then this movie will be an eye opener. And, despite
the fact that hundreds of those killing and being murdered are
children the film lacks any connection, and any real humanity,
beyond the level of the most superficially apology. It's exciting
Brazil is capable of depicting the slaughter of it's people in such
an eye popping manner. It's to bad this film fails to connect with
what lies at the heart of the matter.