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)
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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)
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Reviews (9)
The affiliation with the famous film City of God is distant and takes place purely on a thematic level. Elite Squad looks at the problem of favelas, poverty, and crime from a completely different angle and uses different film techniques. It is the personal confession of the commander of a special police unit in the form of his inner commentary, complemented by a shaky handheld camera that creates a semi-documentary impression. The craftsmanship of the film amounts to a weak 4 stars. What bothers me is the ideological foundation from which Elite Squad stems. The main character is an elitist who seems to have come straight out of Armin the Knight from Vláčil's film The Valley of the Bees. Armin would let the angels survive, but Nascimento wants to exterminate society to such an extent that the result would be similar. There are very few contemporary films that so prominently promote a right-wing authoritarian and elitist ideology. The film is essentially a defense of the creation and operation of the notorious Brazilian E.M., motorized brigades of the São Paulo police that have been "cleansing" the city of child street gangs since the 1960s and have come to be called death squads. The film's protagonist wants to heal the criminality and corruption of the system through executions and torture. Overall impression: 40%.
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Rio de Janeiro isn’t just a sunny city with Jesus standing on a hill. The slums are overflowing with drugs (and trash), and cops’ pockets with money. Because the men from BOPE are here, doing what is necessary, using whatever means necessary. The direction is marvelous, visually inventive and the screenplay develops on several ideas with huge social implications at once. Whether suffocation by plastic bag or fighting against the system (while still keeping your job), it always hits a nerve. So where would you like to go on holiday? To Rio?
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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.
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I did not find any exorbitant political incorrectness in Elite Squad. The film provides no instant solutions to a sad situation, nothing gives hope, and if it does provide something, then it is a rather appalling picture of decaying justice and its humiliated servants. Personally, I was quite convinced by invectives toward left-wing intellectuals from good families, and I was able to identify with Captain Nascimento's views, although the depicted effects of the Crusades on justice evoke appalling feelings. What I really like about the film and find healthily provocative is the fact that the operation in the slums is initiated by the Pope's visit. This strange virtual detachment of civilization from the devastated world of slums and the effort to seek in it a kind of nobility of poverty contrasts well with the aspect of the glued and formatted "black" brains from BOPE. We can argue about where the truth is, but the fact remains that Padilha does not offer any. And if it is on the side of brutality of the men of the law, from my point of view, it does so because a) I am able to identify with it, b) even if I did not identify with it, it is still an aspect I want to know about. BTW, the film is technically brilliant.
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Every couple of years me and some Brazilian movie’s paths cross. And every couple of years it’s a movie that is only hard to forget. This year Tropa de Elite was released. A picture that went perhaps too far in terms of authenticity and intensity of experience. The type of movie that you wouldn’t expect from a western production. Each part is about something else a little differently. Power abusing special units, corrupt police, a hopeless social situation in the slums, politics, the system, society and unit training. All of this throughout the movie will drain you to the core, something that is amply helped by the à la Greengrass documentary style. Despite all the strong aspects of the movie, especially in the second half is the best (or worst, depending) thing about it is Matias’ transformation. It sends shivers down the spine. The negatives here are just purely personal things. Like for instance, Matias’ glasses seem a little out of place in the elite unit, and also the fact that the unit members didn’t cover their faces (EDIT a little later: after watching the documentaries Favela Rising and Bus 174, I take these naive objections back). It’s a powerful movie. Even exceptional. But in no way “nice". Good? Bad? Oh come on, those are long since obsolete terms. No hope, no illusions, no good feelings; pure depression. That is what Tropa de Elite will leave behind in you. For a long, long time.
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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)
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