Elite Squad (DVD)

Well, this is me broadening my horizons, see, subtitles and everything. A friend of mine brought this film over, the place where he rented it had given it rave reviews, so we decided it was probably worth a crack. Set in Rio and spoken in Portuguese this film is obviously sub titled throughout, so if that is the sort of thing to put you off a movie in an instant, give this one a miss. So what's it all about, corruption in the Police force in Rio is running wild, virtually every police officer is on the take in one form or another, whether they are controlling areas and having protection money paid to them or if they organise the local car parking tickets each ...  Read the complete review

Where as the excellent Oscar winning movie the City of God was purely the perspective of the drug dealers in the favelos of Rio de Janeiro and how they effect the poor people around them, this is about the law enforcements view, especially the elite 'B.O.P.E' police squad that have to go in there to sort them out, Brazils very own SAS, adorned with a licence to kill. They don't mess around like we do in South London and if your dealing and the B.O.P.E are on an operation then you get shot up, simple as. In 2008 this became the biggest film in Brazil before it was even launched after master tapes got out and were quickly pirated, illegal copies soon flooding ...  Read the complete review

Those who have seen the excellent "City of God" and the even better TV follow-up series "City of Men" might have high hopes for another Brazilian film about life in the favelas. Those hopes will be dashed. This is a horrible film. It concerns Captain Nascimento, expectant father and member of the Special Operations Battallion (Elite Squad) of the Rio de Janeiro police, and two rookie coppers, Neto Gouveia and Andre Matias. All three are fervently anti-drug and anti-corruption. What the latter rookies don't know is that Nascimento is eyeing them up as a prospective successor, after deciding he's not ruthless enough to continue his ...  Read the complete review

The Elite Sqaud or otherwise known as Tropa de Elite is a film made in 2007, directed by Brazil's Jose Padilha, and winner of the Golden Bear Award at this year's Berlin International Film Festival. Rodrigo Pimental, an ex BOPE (State Police Special Operations Batallion) is co-writer of the screenplay along with Braulio Manlovani (author of The City of God). It is the highest grossing film in Brazil, pirate copies of the film have flooded the country and it has been praised highly by most citizens of Brazil apart from the middle class liberals and the boys in blue. Based in the poverty stricken shanty towns of Brazil otherwise known as favelas, it tells the ...  Read the complete review