Directed by:
José PadilhaCinematography:
Lula CarvalhoComposer:
Pedro BromfmanCast:
Wagner Moura, André Ramiro, Caio Junqueira, Milhem Cortaz, Fernanda Machado, Maria Ribeiro, Paulo Vilela, Fernanda de Freitas, Fábio Lago, Otto Jr. (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
Thriller that follows an elite police battalion (BOPE) tasked with cleaning up a drug-ridden Rio de Janeiro slum in advance of the pope's 1997 visit. A team of trained killers, they struggle to do what's right in a corrupt system and dangerous neighborhood. (official distributor synopsis)
Videos (2)
Reviews (9)
I won't deny that in the first half of the film I was still about two minutes ahead of the scene playing out and it was getting on my nerves a bit. The cinematography was confusing with its disjointedness, the frantic and not-so-skillfully strung together editing, the nonsensical voiceover, the confused characters and timelines, and especially the lack of any memorable scene sure did their part. However, in the second half there is brilliant, severely incorrect, brutal, and escalating violence.
()
Rio de Janeiro is full of pissed off drug dealers and gangs, and they must be taken off the streets before the Pope comes to visit. The elite BOPA unit will be happy to do the job. A very impressive and well shot action drama about how life in Brazil is far from idyllic. But this audiovisual and atmospheric banger has a problem with perhaps too radical ideas in the script.
()
If the entire film was only about the training of the new members of the “elite squad”, the only thing that would bother me would be the ideological aftertaste left by almost every scene. But Elite Squad has many more things that bothered me: there isn’t a lot of action, and when there is some, it’s not very clear, half the scenes are pointless, the subplots are uninteresting, the script goes nowhere and there are many ugly male characters that (other than the main trio) I could never tell apart. To tell you the truth, after half an hour I was already looking forward to the end (and I kept on looking forward until the end).
()
Elite Squad wants to shock and awe, but it lacks the better expressive devices, emotion and directorial virtuosity of the makers of City of God – which it so closely resembles at first glance with its volatile cinematography, raw tone and choppy editing. Unfortunately, the story is about nothing and the characters don't win you over one bit, after an hour you're actually just waiting for everyone to get shot in a shouted and eclectic jumble to keep the peace.
()
Considerably weaker than City of God, but still a drama of immense power. The worst is that we are forced to watch hell on earth through the eyes of the cruellest policeman ever, whose actions become increasingly disgusting as the story progresses, but at the same time we understand more and more that there is no other way. Whether it's the torture and shooting of dealers or the incredibly tough military training, which at one point is really hard to follow, in any case, José Padilha has achieved his goal of presenting us with a society so bleakly devastated and corrupted on both sides of the law that I will never forget it.
()
Gallery (25)
Photo © The Weinstein Company
![Elite Squad - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/136/795/136795601_f1aa0b.jpg)
Ads