Reviewed by Byron Potau.<\/p>\n
Jose Padilha\u2019s violent new film, Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite), is a harsh indictment of the city of Rio de Janeiro, and like the recent City of God, brings some of the harsh realities of this city and its condition to the forefront.
\nThis film focuses its first half on the police corruption that has resulted from the drug dealers\u2019 stranglehold on the city.\u00a0 Police enter the slums only to get their cut from drug dealers who carry bigger and better guns than the police do.\u00a0 Police commanders order their captains do drag dead bodies into other districts to lower the death toll in their own district only to have other commanders drag them back.\u00a0 Corruption is everywhere from the bottom to the top.\u00a0 However, the police are not solely to blame as the young rich potheads smoking and selling are unwittingly funding the drug dealers and make their power possible.
\nTwo best friends, Andre (Andre Ramiro) and Neto (Ciao Junqueira), are rookie police who see these two sides of the equation and eventually decide to rise above it by becoming a part of the special police division, BOPE.\u00a0 They are a specially trained division of the police that even the drug dealers fear.\u00a0 The film is narrated by Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura) who is trying to find his replacement among the new trainees as he has just become a father and the pressure is starting to get to him.
\nThe conditions of the city and state of its police force are unquestionably appalling, and easily provoke disgust.\u00a0 This is not a film that lets you ignore the social conditions.\u00a0 While the film is well executed throughout, it rises to a new level in the BOPE training scenes where the captains train the recruits, using all manner of method to get them to quit.\u00a0 Only the strongest will pass their test and the weak and corrupt will not make it.\u00a0 These scenes are harsh and extreme, but never seem exploitative or over the top.\u00a0 The acting from top to bottom is excellent with no one cast member outshining another, helping to keep the flow and realism of the film consistent.
\nThe film has one failing and that is an overuse of handheld camera which achieves its purpose in creating a chaotic environment, but at times was a bit nauseating to the viewer.\u00a0 Other than this, the film moves at a brisk pace, and has an intensity and realism that make it a stay with the viewer long after the credits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Byron Potau. Jose Padilha\u2019s violent new film, Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite), is a harsh indictment of the city of Rio de Janeiro, and like the recent City of God, brings some of the harsh realities of this city and its condition to the forefront. This film focuses its first half on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}