"Kill... be respected".

Rating: 8/10 (18 September 2011)

Notwithstanding it's reputation and viewer rating on this board, this is a tough movie to watch. It's not what I'd call an entertaining picture, and it actually takes some work to watch with it's non-linear style and the fact that it's a foreign film with characters having unfamiliar names. I actually needed paper and pen to keep track of the players using street names like Rocket, Shaggy, Li'l Ze and Carrot. But even that all takes a back seat to the sordid nature of life in a ghetto of Rio de Janeiro called Cidade de Deus, the City of God. City of Satan might be more appropriate, as the area where the story takes place is a literal hell on Earth, and life has about as much meaning as the insect you crush beneath your footstep. Most of the picture is visually jarring; watching with my family produced more than a handful of gasps as random street violence was presented as commonplace. The worst to my mind was the decision a pre-teen gang member had to make regarding which of his contemporaries he would have to kill to show loyalty to his leader. I'm just horrified that there are people in the world who actually live this way, with little to no hope of ever escaping to a less turbulent existence. For mere existence it is, with very little chance of escape, except by death which seems the the most viable way out for many of these troubled youth.