One of my PERSONAL top ten movies of all time.

Rating: 9/10 (29 May 2006)

This movies is absolutely AMAZING, and for the most part holds up to the hype that surrounds it. I won't get into the story as a few hundred people have already described the gist of the story, but I'll tell you what makes it so good. First the subject matter is important and timely. This movie brings attention to the rampant crime and homelessness in Brazil, especially amongst young children. All the characters are interesting but the editing and camera angles are amongst the best I have ever seen, definitely in my top 5 best edited movies. Hell, you even get the perspective of a chicken being chased by a dozen trigger-happy gangsters! At first your bombarded with scenes from different time-lines, but in the end it all comes to fruition and is explained in an ingenious manner. Everybody pretty much is a gangster in this film (even kids) leaving no one to empathize with, so you have to empathize with their SITUATION, meaning that you feel empathy for EVERYONE involved because all the characters seemed to have been abused and are dirt-poor, living in a barrio in which you have to kill and rob to survive. There is one scene in which a child is coerced into making a choice of killing one of two OTHER children about his age as an initiation. The younger of the two victims actually pees his pants and starts crying like the child he should be acting like. Mind you, this now victim had earlier been stealing and beating other victims himself, but when faced with death reverted back to a child-like state. Mind you, him AND his buddy have both been shot in the foot as punishment for all their stealing. The scene is so realistic that you almost think it's real. And the acting? Absolutely Phenomenal acting from EVERYBODY, especially the youngest children. That's saying a lot because almost everybody in the film ARE actually from the Barrio, with no formal acting experience whatsoever. In other words after filming these kids went back to the ghetto. After seeing this movie I'm positive Hollywood actors make too much money for the crap they put out and call a movie. Anyway, in no way does this film glamorize violence or the gangs as almost anyone involved in the gangster lifestyle pretty much meets a violent demise at the end. This movie in no way tries to preach or even offer a solution for the poverty and violence in Brazil, it's just a snapshot of a day in the life of the barrios and slums of Brazil, the cold hard truth of a region that basks in the sun by day only to hide from the overwhelming violence by night. This film is as important and telling to Brazil as Joint Security Area is to the Korean peninsula. A must see by any standard.