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Elite Squad (2007)

Director: José Padilha

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10 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Muscling in on the sun-bleached Brazilian favela antics popularised by Fernando Meirelles (‘City of God’) and Walter Salles (‘Central Station’), director José Padilha’s fictional follow-up to his 2002 doc ‘Bus 174’ looks at the dangers of life in the slums of Rio through the eyes of the city’s various law enforcement agencies. At the film’s core is the bullish Nascimento (Wagner Moura), commander of the BOPE tactical unit which is routinely dispatched to the ghetto to stamp out violent crime. Nascimento is on the lookout for recruits pending his coming retirement but is worried that BOPE’s aggressive (borderline sadistic, in fact) methods have corrupted his ability to sustain a loving marriage and raise a child.

And you can see why: civil liberties are suspended, trampled on and then buried as suspects are shot, stabbed and suffocated by members of the unit. In a recurring motif, see-through plastic bags are pulled over a suspect’s head and, to the sound of facial pummelling, seen to fill up with blood. It’s questionable whether Padilha is offering an objective ethical enquiry into the deployment of these ‘techniques’ or merely whooping up their violent ends from behind the camera.

Suffice to say, these scenes may leave more liberal-minded viewers feeling a little queasy. Viewed as a pumped-up action movie, ‘Elite Squad’, which won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin, is also sold short by its awkward structure, first swooping into the favela to deal with sundry gunplay, drug crime and police corruption, then tailing off on a ‘Full Metal Jacket’ style training camp where prospective BOPE candidates are put through the gruelling wringer. It is impressively made, but leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Author: David Jenkins

Time Out London Issue 1981: August 7 - 13, 2008

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User reviews of this film

Jenita said...

Posted on Dec 30 2011 00:27 This images of this film are likely to to stay with you....forever. An extremely powerful story told with unrelenting guts and brutal honesty. I think that some of us privileged,western, middle class liberals need to see this film to really attempt to understand the terrible reality for the people who live in the favelas with the drugs, crime, poverty, and corruption. Not to menion the uphill battle of the few honest police officers to not only do their job, but to try to retain some semblance of humanity in the process.

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Rubens said...

Posted on Sep 22 2008 20:08 A masterpiece: puts you inside the life of a police captain in Rio.
One gets in his shoes to share his everyday problems so at the end one cannot so easily judge the actions he takes to face an impossible mission: to clean a city that doesn’t want to be cleaned.
The torture and killing is unfortunately part of every day life in Rio thus not optional like some feature in an American police action movie.
Therefore the movie's tone is realistic one. BTW reality doesn’t care what liberals think about it or what kind of taste it lets in their mouths.
The critic most likely watched the movie with the sound turned down and probably didn’t even have the trouble to read the inscription “based on a true story”.
This movie is a must if you want to understand the actual sorry state of affairs in Rio.

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adriana said...

Posted on Aug 22 2008 15:54 a masterpiece, it stayed in my mind many days after I watched it, fantastic acting...

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adriana said...

Posted on Aug 22 2008 15:52 fantastic film, a masterpiece despite the violence, I could really feel it and I kept thinking of the film after a week..

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Christina said...

Posted on Aug 18 2008 22:12 Brilliant

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Lucas Abrahão said...

Posted on Aug 17 2008 15:58 Elite Squad is an absolute masterpiece. Liberals tend to dislike the movie for its apparent support for violence, but the movie does not support violence at any point - it can't be forgotten that the narrator is a BOPE member. The movie just shows some gruesome reality, and proposes a wide debate about the use of violence by cops.

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JimmyLee said...

Posted on Aug 15 2008 12:11 The film makes no moral judgements on what the officers do, it simply tells the tale, and does so very well. Better than the Dark Knight surely

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Sergio Martin said...

Posted on Aug 12 2008 18:33 Great!! Fantastic!! Best movie of the last two years.

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john said...

Posted on Aug 11 2008 20:15 amazing, portrays a reality perhaps too brutal for a timeout film critic s understanding, and does not apologize for its contradictions.

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Roberto said...

Posted on Aug 09 2008 14:36 excellent acting and screenplay. non-stop action.

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