Life & Death on the mean streets in "The City of God"

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2004)

****SPOILERS**** The movie "The City of God" starts where it ends with a bloody showdown between the Li'lZe mob and their very young allies "The Young Runts" having it out with the Carrot and Ned Knockout gang. Sandwiched between those two scenes are a number of brutal killings that dull your senses and condition you for the movies ferocious and climactic bloodbath. Savage and surrealistic movie about life and death in the slums of Rio de Janeiro and how great the odds are for anybody surviving in that "Hell on Earth".
The movie starts out with eight young men growing up in "The City of God" with only one of them remaining alive by the time the movie is over. Rocket is by far the most sympathetic of those in the movie as he tries all throughout the film, and in the end succeeds, in overcoming the odds against him to become a productive and law-abiding citizen but also a top Brazilian newspaper photographer. I felt that it was Ned Knockout who was the best example of how those mean and deadly "City of God" streets drive both young and old alike into a life of crime and violence even, unlike Rcket, if they do their best to avoid it.
Ned a quiet and peaceful young man was publicly humiliated by the brutal and vicious thug in the movie Li'lZe. Not having tortured Ned enough Li'lZe and his gang came to Ned's home where they murdered his brother Gelson when he tried to defend and protect Ned. This tragedy was compounded when Ned in a rage killed a number of the Li'lze mob and then joined up with the Carrot gang to battle the Li'lZe mob and their Young Runt allies.
During a bank robbery by the Carrot mob Ned shot and killed a bank guard who's son Max later joined the Carrot mob to avenge his fathers death. In the final street battle in the movie Ned is shot and killed by the son of the man that he murdered Max as he was trying to save his, Max's, life. All this after Ned was shot and badly wounded by the Li'lZe mob .Both Ned and Max were at first innocent bystanders who turned to crime because of circumstances beyond their control and ended up both killing and getting killed in the whirlpool of violence that engulfed the "City of God".
The movie plays like one of those 1930's and 40's Warner Brothers crime movies where neighborhood crime becomes a part of the lives of those who live there and the theater audience can only accept the violence on the screen since there's no way for those in the movie to get out of that brutal environment. The acting in the film by mostly a cast of unknowns is surprisingly good with a very skillful directing effort by L. Mireiles. Mireiles keeps the story flowing smoothly and keeps the violence in check and at the same time makes it very effective and realistic. The ending of the movie with Li'lZe getting blasted to pieces by a group of the members of "The Young Runts" his allies who turned on him, many of them then under 12 year old, showed how the cycle of death and violence continues. A none ending cycle of death and destruction that effects those living on the mean streets and knowing nothing else. Even at a very young and impressionable age in the pitiless and merciless horror called "The City of God".