A thoroughly absorbing, powerful and unforgettable movie experience

Rating: 10/10 (8 May 2006)

STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits
A film set in Rio De Janeiro's infamous City of God, an area in which combat photographer's fear to tread, police rarely go and residents are lucky if they live to the age of twenty. The film opens in the 1960s, where a young Rocket, who is too scared of being killed or hurt to become a gang member, dreams of becoming a photographer later in life. In the meantime, a street gang which includes his older brother, rules the streets, holding up gas trucks and stores. But this doesn't provide enough money, so his gang, along with a young boy named L'il Dice, engineer a raid on a fancy hotel, planning to make off with a good deal of cash but not to kill any one. This plan, of course, goes pear shaped and in the aftermath, the police launch a major sweep on the slum to catch the culprits. But things really heat up when Rocket's older brother has an affair with the wife of a local man and, when it is discovered, is forced to flee the slum and, unfortunately, he doesn't make it out alive.
A decade later, Rocket is now older and a bit more guided. But the terror of the street gangs continues, with one drug dealing (where the real money is) gang lead by the irredeemable L'il Ze, who used to be the boy L'il Dice, and his best friend from childhood Benny, and another, ruthless but more rounded gang of drug dealers lead by Carrot. But when L'il Ze gang rapes the girlfriend and kills the brother of a local pacifist, everything culminates into a brutal final confrontation between all the gangs dominating Rio de Janeiro before the cycle of violence starts up all over again.
Brazil's Rio De Janeiro is probably one of the first places that springs to mind whenever anyone mentions the subject of gangs and gang violence. And with good reason since it is certainly one of the worst, with such shocking statistics as mentioned above. And, in spanning three decades of trouble and strife in the area, film maker Fernando Meirelles has crafted one of the most extremely thorough, unbelievably engrossing and totally satisfying films you are likely to see, a searing, powerful and at times very disturbing examination of characters caught up in the violence. We have a character, warped and twisted from a young age (who may well have become as bad as he does if he was raised in Swindon instead of Rio) and who grows up to show no signs of changing down his road of evil (managing one or two distressing scenes along with it.) Another character part of the cycle of death and violence but who still manages to come off as a nice, affable guy all the same but who's fate is sealed when he tries to find a way out. Another character who, even on the path of retribution, tries to stay ethical and remain a good person but who circumstances dictate ends up becoming as bad as those he's going after. And one last character whose own weariness of violence and single ambition is probably what keeps him on the straight and narrow till the end and produces probably the only happy ending in the film. Other than that, we finish on a scene of a group of young street orphans roaming the war-torn streets, talking about how the money's not in robberies but drugs, and that the mostly tragic events we've just seen are about to repeat themselves in a film that could be exactly the same.
IMDb users generally know what they're talking about, and they've voted a most satisfying film in at #16, a mostly downbeat and disturbing but still sweeping, soaring and utterly absorbing account of a place where misery and bloodshed is doomed to continue, which sweeps by at just over two hours (even quicker on second viewing) and also boasts a fine soundtrack to boot (including the ultimate one hit wonder Kung Fu Fighting.) What film-making is all about. *****