This is a Brazilian movie that came out there a few months back and became the highest grossing South American film ever. I’m just now catching up with this well-made crime drama but, let’s be honest, this movie wasn’t exactly at the top of your list for movies you’re waiting to read about. So I’ll keep it short.
What Works: This movie starts off morally simple (drug dealers=subhuman scum, cops that murder them in the street=heroes) but grows gradually deeper. The movie’s eventual moral that the system is dirty and will make surface “change” to preserve its rotten nature works better. Plus, I can’t deny that the movie is well-staged and has an investigative side that really digs deeper into crime and corruption than most American crime movies can be said to do. The ending really works.
What Doesn’t: There’s nothing that can be said to be all that fresh here. Also, the movie suffers from a common South American movie problem: unnecessary narration. There’s nothing that happens onscreen without the lead character/narrator (a hard-ass Latin American Dirty Harry) hammering home what’s happening with a sledge hammer with extra expository narration.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Either completely deep sixed the narration (the movie works fine without it) or limited it to a handful of uses throughout the movie only to express thoughts the gruff narrator wouldn’t out loud.