City of God, You Have Stolen My Soul!

Rating: 8/10 (11 September 2005)

This very long movie is entirely in Portuguese (what I call the devil's language). Yet, you quickly get sucked in and no longer notice you're reading subtitles. The story is more or less that of 2 boys in the hood, one who wants to be a photographer. The other follows a very Scarface-esquire path to rise to the peak of gangsterdom. Oddly, while neither one helps the other on purpose, neither could achieve what they did without the other.
IMDb currently ranks this film at 18 of all time, which seems greatly over-rated. Good movie? Yeah. Great movie? Yeah. But 18th of all time? Maybe not. Three things I really liked about this film.
1. The great use of Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting" during a party scene. 2. The explicitness. Full nudity of men and women, little kids swearing and doing drugs - shooting people in cold blood and laughing. It is this ability to shock and stun that really makes this film great and not just a knockoff of other gangster tales. 3. The interwoven tales. Like Pulp Fiction, all the characters connect to all the others - and not always in a linear direction. This film requires a minimum of three viewings to truly appreciate it. Very high recommendation!