A splendid movie

Rating: 9/10 (16 April 2018)

This is a movie about young people who live in the guts of Rio de Jeneiro. It starts with a scene where a gang of children chase a running chicken and suddenly flashbacks to 60s to set up the background for the main theme. After that, more than 90% of the movie are dedicated to laying the ground work for the opening scene, which is indeed the overture of the finale and a substantial amount of mental effort is needed to piece together the events which unfold at a very fast pace and involve a lot of characters. Despite its patchy storytelling style with full of flashbacks, the movie is coherent without any plot holes. Although a good deal of the actors are recruited amateurs from the favela the acting is pretty good and director's portrayal of the gang leader Ze Pequeno is uncompromising. The movie's fast tempo and action packed scenes doesn't leave any room for character development but this doesn't really stick out. Viewing more than once will probably be needed to grasp the whole story with its details.