aok

Rating: 9/10 (4 June 2016)

Set in Brazil in the 1970s, the film tells the story of Rocket (Alexandre Rorigues in an excellent, understated performance), a teenage boy living in an extremely violent area of Rio De Janeiro called The City of God. Like most boys his age, all Rocket wants is to get laid, smoke a little blow and chill with his friends. However, the violence around him not only complicates this it throws him smack dab in the middle of it. When he loses his low paying job, he watches with envy the carefree life of the drug lords Lil Zee and Benny (Leandro Firmino and Phellipe Haagensen respectively) who run the ghetto. They flash money and ride brand new motor scooters through the streets of the hood. When he loses his girl to the more enigmatic gangster Benny, Rocket declares in frustration, "It was like a message from God: Honesty doesn't pay, sucker." Seeing delinquency as the only way to prosper, Rocket decides to pursue criminal ventures of his own. Fortunately, Rocket and his equally square buddy, prove to be the most inept of criminals. They don't even have the heart to rob a lost drunk who has unwittingly gotten lost in the slums. Rocket soon resigns himself to the fact he's no criminal. He's one of the nobodies. One of the thousands whose fate is in the hands of a few crazy fools with guns. Luckily for Rocket, fate was waiting around the corner with a better hand for him to play.