Rating: 
Summary: a well done movie
Review: Some things are a bit too much, but on the overall the movie is really good and gives everybody a little taste of life in the Rio favelas. For the american from DC that thinks the movie is unreal and that the life in the slums is not like, i just have to say...don't talk about something you have no knowledge about.
Anyways, the movie is really good and I will definetely buy it, and I recomend it to everybody buy it.
Rating:
Summary: I SALUTE THIS MOVIE
Review: Brazil, 1960's, City of God. The Tender Trio robs motels and gas trucks. Younger kids watch and learn well...too well. 1970's: Li'l Ze has prospered very well and owns the city. He causes violence and fear as he wipes out rival gangs without mercy. His best friend Bene is the only one to keep him on the good side of sanity. Rocket has watched these two gain power for years, and he wants no part of it. Yet he keeps getting swept up in the madness. All he wants to do is take pictures. 1980's: Things are out of control between the last two remaining gangs...will it ever end? Welcome to the City of God.When this movie finished I remembered the sheer joy which over came me. I'm glad that it wasn't another diabolical cheesey Hollywood blockbuster. Director 'Kátia Lund
Fernando Meirelles (I)' using documentary style movie-making to capture the urban style of the city. Effective camera angles and shots give the movie a stylish, cool finish. Almost all the character are thouroghly well developed and remeberable. Well acted, considering most of the actors are street kids improvising. The pace of the story is had a tremendous pace. Effective, violent and puts a message across of how violence solves nothing and how it continues to circulate within younger generations. I laughed and cried at this movie, and would deffiantely reccomend it. The thing that hit me the most was that its based on a true story...
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely must be in your DVD collection
Review: It is amazing. Unfortunately it only ran for 1 week in my city - and I saw it on the last day. I want to see it again and again. It will definately be in my DVD collection as soon as it becomes available.
Rating:
Summary: Raw Reality.
Review: I was fortunate enough to be visiting Rio de Janeiro at the time this film was released. I have never seen a film that grips viewers as powerfully as this one. Many of the people I encountered in Rio could not even discuss the film without tears in their eyes. This film gives viewers an empathy and understanding for people all over this world who are without choice. It promotes a passionate awareness of a reality that is so easy to forget in the passive affluence of the United States. This movie, while brimming over with artistic mastery, is difficult to see. It is violent. One could even argue that the film glorifies the bloody life of the gangster. But anyone with an inclination to such an attraction would also be forced to realize the clear message of the film: Vengeance and violence will consume and devour. Contrary to a movie like Gangs of New York, the protagonist of this film escapes the viscious cycle. (And the violence in this film isn't nearly as graphic or dramatized.) The images are sobering but so compelling and worth stomaching. Remember what this film depicts resembles the every-day existence for many. Devoting a disturbing 2 hours that could lead to a somber mood shouldn't be too much to sacrifice.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best films to come out in recent years
Review: Disturbing, engaging, visually enthralling, entertaining, imaginative, innovative, direct, emotional, true to life, an eye-opener. This film is nothing short of spectacular. Few films that come out nowadays go the distance to include every major aspect of a great film. Not going to go into much detail regarding characters/plot. Everyone else will cover that in their reviews. Plot
Many directors and screenwriters have tried to create a gang violence film depicting the lifestyles of youth engaged in these gangs. Everything from West Side Story to Boyz N the Hood. None of these films can light a match to the realism portrayed in this film. Perhaps none of them have tried or meant to try. What few of them fail to depict is the difficulty of youth in being able to escape their fate as slum rats. As they are born into gangs, they fail in trying to escape it. Those that manage to escape it, never really escape. It's the vicious cycle of the rich becoming richer, and the poor becoming poorer. This film portrays it amazingly as we see the children joining these gangs becoming younger and younger. Spectacular. Mise-en-Scene...
As much of the film takes place in the 70s, the crew does an amazing job of transporting you there. Costumes, lighting, sets (all shot on location). I truly feel like I was watching a film made in the 70s. To truly get a feel for things, many of the actors spent much of their time in the slums of Rio De Janeiro to get a real feel for how these people lived. Some of the cast, to my understanding, even grew up there. A thorough amount of research went into replicating the detail of what we see. Spectacular. Direction...
My favorite aspect of this film. There are many scenes that stand out. I will mention two. The scene where L'il Ze takes over the drug business. It's shot from about 4 different angles and each are edited into the film. Spectacular. The scene at the rave with Bene (won't say anymore). The film gets five stars for these two scenes alone. Other scenes to look out for are the final scene with L'il Ze and one of the more powerful scenes with the two very young children...Spectacular. This film excels beyond what any film accomplishes or tries to accomplish with an originality of direction, a truthfulness in mise-en-scene, and an enormous strength in plot and character development. One of the best films of the past several years.
Rating:
Summary: Great Visuals and Great Sound! This Will Knock You Out
Review: This Brazilian film "City of God" has already gathered universal praise, and the film deserves every word of it. Think of the vitality of Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and the subject matter of "Menace II Society" and you get both of them here. Cinematic tour-de-force, "City of God" from Brazil depicts the relentless reality of the ghetto of Rio de Janeiro, following the three decades from the 60s to the 80s, but the impression after seeing through it is like being knocked out by the unstoppable visual energy and musical power. Violent, but not so graphically so, so don't steer away. Based on the book by the writer Paulo Lins's "Cidade de Deus" (who actually lived there), the film starts with a dynamite opening sequence where the camera tactfully shows the boy unwisely trapped between the police squad and armed gangsters (mainly still teens or even pre-teens) on the street of Rio. How come is he standing there? The film suddenly jumps back to the former generation's story, which eventually leads up to the present situation of the boy "Rocket" (in the original, "Buscape") who aspires to be a photo journalist. And the stories of the people there, told by Rocket, begin. With a series of exciting shots and skillful editing, the film never stops, gripping your heart to the end. There are robberey that ends up with a violent ending (and how it happened will shock you); the rise of drug king Li'L Z and his no mercy policy (which ironically brings about the short-lived stability of the place where ever-changing power is a usual thing); and the inevitable ending of his violent actions. Inserted between the main story are lots of side-characters who are no less impressive than Rocket and LiL Z. All of these characters imbue energy into this incredibly intense film. You might flinch, but not because of the blood or gunshots. You see comparatively few of them, compared with "Reservoir Dogs" or "Gangs of New York." Less graphic than you imagine, the film still shocks you with the merciless moments showing the fates of the some children living there, whose life is treated as very cheap. At the same time, however, the film gives no preachy messages and simply leaves us dizzy with the power of the place. Some may disagree, quite understandably, with the often "pop" way the film treats the serious subject matter. But whether you like it or not, you just cannot turn your eyes from the screen. The main director Brazilian Fernado Meirelles and co-director Katia Lund display expert job here, never letting up for a moment. If you want to witness what a good film can do with its visual skills, you just see this film. Its running time (which goes more than 2 hours) will literally fly. Check out the girl Angelica who sits next to Rocket on the beach. She is played by Alice Braga, niece to more famous actress Sonia Braga.
Rating:
Summary: Awsome
Review: This is quite simply a breathtaking piece of film making. The film itelf is just a must see. The acting is brilliant also. It is a brutally violent which is why it seems so real. An Amazing film
Rating:
Summary: Mind Blowing
Review: I'm brazilian. Historicaly, brazilian cinema [is bad]. The best brazilian film i've ever watched was two stars. And i was prepared to hate this one as well. And because of the director's background (advertising) i was sure that this was a 120-minute-long and boring commercial spot. 10 minutes of film, and i was trying (hard) to hate it. But at the 20th i gave up: this is a spectacular movie. Music, sound, story, actors (my good, were them perfect), photography, and editing. I was blown away. But it is true too, that this film does not speak to foreign audiences. It can be liked oh yes, but not completely understood.
Tagline: This is not the best movie ever. But is the first to ever make me proud to be brazilian.
Rating: 
Summary: RAW, COLORFUL STREETS OF RIO IN A CARNIVAL OF FILM-MAKING
Review: So this is what Brazilian ghettos look like. Stylistically a little like "Traffic" (liberal reliance on sepia tones or drugs) or "Salaam Bombay" (similar theme couched in the streets of Bombay), this movie is a bloody but captivating look at real life in modern day Rio. Gangsterism is no more a fringe career option amidst the socio-economic strife of the city, but a prime-time industry that takes guts and guile to keep away from. Character after character in the movie fall a prey to this vicious panoply of drugs, poverty and gore. An underlying personal thread is the story of how our protagonist, Rocket, becomes a news photographer and escapes from the slum. Plus, a minor subplot about how he loses his virginity. Technically, the movie is nothing short of stunning. Several virtuoso scenes are strewn together with clever direction in which the dizzying pace and the sheer number of characters don't detract from a coherent, well told story. We are led in and around scenes, and frequently led back to explain why what occured occured. Wannabe-editors will marvel at how cunningly this effect is achieved. The cinematography, needless to mention, is geewhiz, the screen literally pops with color. I could wax eloquent about more reasons but the proof is in the pudding. City of God bursts at the seams with energy, vivid color and a poignant story of a man's escape from the social drivel he is born into. If you can get your hands on this movie, do so pronto, you won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: City Of God--One of the Best Films in the Past 10 Years
Review: One of the best films I've ever seen. This gritty, depressing, hardboiled crime saga follows the story of a young photographer and his experience in the ghetto's of Rio de Janeiro. I feel fortunate I was able to see this film in the theater, this is the type of film that will influence directors years from now. The violence is in your face and brutal, and the fact that most of the characters are under the age of 16 makes some of the scene's hard to digest. But none of the violence is gratuitous or unnecessary. Also the film is perfectly stylized in the Disco/Funk era of the 70's. The sound track is all Brazilian Funk and provides a great balance to the violence and crazy attitudes of all the gangsters. The story depicts the rise and fall of a 16 year old cocain king pin and his 12 year old cronies, all captured in photographs by the main character, who tries his hardest to rise out of the ghetto by means other than drugs or violence. What is even more incredable about this movie is that it is a true story, and most of the actors are real kids from the ghetto's of Rio. But the movie hardly relies on the fact that it's a true story to become ingagining, it really wasn't until the film ended that I realized that most of the events in the movie actually happened. The film is so well stylized you will feel as though you are watching an documentry of these events. A film you will not soon forget.
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