Elite Squad (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Good perspective on Brazils crimewave
Disadvantages:	One - sided

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Where as the excellent Oscar winning movie the City of God was purely the perspective of the drug dealers in the favelos of Rio de Janeiro and how they effect the poor people around them, this is about the law enforcements view, especially the elite ‘B.O.P.E’ police squad that have to go in there to sort them out, Brazils very own SAS, adorned with a licence to kill. They don’t mess around like we do in South London and if your dealing and the B.O.P.E are on an operation then you get shot up, simple as.

In 2008 this became the biggest film in Brazil before it was even launched after master tapes got out and were quickly pirated, illegal copies soon flooding the whole city, 2.4 million of its eventual 4 million audiences seeing an illegal version, making it the unofficial hit of 2007. The tapes weren’t the only thing stolen, the crew suffering some serious theft and violence for not getting the permission of the local drug lord to film.

The films appeal was universal across Brazil, a clever twisting tale of the countries social classes’ attitudes towards drugs and the hypocrisies that throws up. On one hand Brazil’s middle-class rely on the police to keep the favelos and drug dealers at bay, on the other hand the same well healed class snort cocaine and smoke pot, yet berating the police, the good ones and the corrupt ones, for their fascist brutality towards those very favelos and street kids that get the drugs for them. The war on drugs rages on because of that duplicity in Brazil and the body count keeps rising. This movie uses the true story of the Popes visit to Rio to highlight that complex dynamic amongst the people of Brazil, B.O.P.E. having to ‘make it safe’ for the Pope to stay in the chosen hotel in the favelos, the Popes stance of unity to all people of Rio admirable but also knowing the cops would have to ‘remove’ the street kids and dealers for his visit…

-The Cast-

Wagner Moura ... Capitão Nascimento
Caio Junqueira ... Neto
André Ramiro ... André Matias
Maria Ribeiro ... Rosane
Fernanda Machado ... Maria
Fernanda de Freitas ... Roberta
Paulo Vilela ... Edu
Milhem Cortaz ... Capitão Fábio
Marcelo Valle ... Capitão Oliveira
Fábio Lago ... Claudio Mendes de Lima 'Baiano'
Bruno Delia ... Capitão Azevedo
Marcelo Escorel ... Coronel Otávio

-The Plot-

We begin with honest cops Neto (Caio Junqueira) and Matias (André Ramiro) having an unscheduled trip deep into the Favelo, off limits for regular police officers like them, but armed with a snipers rifle, preparing to shoot at a group of corrupt cops and dealers, before we flash back six months to find out how they got to this desperate position.
Half a year before we meet them again, Matias a student of law working as a beat cop to pay the bills and Neto a career rookie, brave but stupid, both dumped in the mechanic shop to cannibalise parts to fix police cars, not quite what they had in mind when they joined up.

There commanding officer, Capitão Fábio (Milhem Cortez), is corrupt, as many of the low paid police officers are in Brazil, everyone under pressure because the Pope has decided that he wants to visit Rio, but not stay in a palatial hotel but sleep in the slums with his people, which means an operation is underway to make that possible. So enter Capitão Nascimento (Wagner Moura), the head of BOPE, tasked with cleaning up the slum for the visit but also under personal pressure as he tries to find his replacement. The BOPE are a ruthless and highly rained bunch and take no prisoners and he needs the right man for the job.

Law student Matias is one of very few black Brazilians at the elite Rio University, judged lower class by his fellow students as a matter of course, and not wanting to reveal he’s a cop either to add to the stigma, many of his left wing tutorials not complimentary to the law. But its here he is drawn into this Brazilian white elites world, falling for sexy NGO worker Rosane (Maria Ribeiro), who runs a charity in the slums for helping street kids, the same slum the BOPE will soon be cleansing, her office part funded by local gangster 'Baiano' (Fábio Lago) and on his rules and woe betide if they break them, but Rosane and friends not impartial to smoking the very drugs that bring chaos to the favelos and young kids. Matias has to stand back as a cop to suffer this middle-class hypocrisy at the university but when all of our main protagonists meet in a violent juxtaposition of class prejudice and police corruption he’s a good man to have in the trenches.

-The Conclusion-

This is good stuff, simple and effective film making, dramatic and engaging, a reasonably balanced look at the dance with the devil between drugs and the police, control of supply not victory what it’s all about. The hypocrisy of the rich needing drugs yet shunning the poor who bring them to their door is interesting where as the Pope storyline, although based on actual events, is seriously under used. But with enough tension and action for the boys the film moves along nicely and you say fair enough, I’ve been entertained.

The acting is particularly strong and the brooding Wagner Moura as Capitão Nascimento is fabulous, as is André Ramiro as André Matias. City of God seemed to invigorate Brazilian film and this has taken up the torch, the director giving the punters what they want, more of the same but with a different angle, not quite the cinematography genius of the City of God but still atmospheric. But what this is is solid foreign action film in what can be a flat genre. If you liked City of God then this is for you.

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Imdb.com scores it 8.0 out of 10.0 (15,089 votes)
RuN-TiMe 115 minutes
2 films for 2 nights for £5 at Blockbusters
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