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City of God (2003)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:147
Fresh:135
Rotten:12
Average Rating:8.3/10
Consensus: A shocking and disturbing, but always compelling look at life in the slums of Rio de Janiero.
Theatrical Release:Jan 17, 2003 Limited
Box Office: $7,299,820
Synopsis: Youth gangs took over the slums of Rio de Janiero during the 1960s and didn't relinquish their stronghold until the mid-1980s. Only a sucker wouldn't have turned to crime and this is exactly how... [More]
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Reviews for City of God
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 A+ |
Fernando Meirelles' Brazilian slum epic is a profound, stylistically expansive depiction of three decades of child gang warfare on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro with non-actors playing their poverty-ridden lives for the camera. Full Review |
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Often masterful in its distillation of exposition into pure sight and sound energy... but equally frustrating in its attention-grabbing lack of focus. Full Review |
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4/5 |
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3.5/4 |
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5/5 |
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A- |
City of God is not the easiest film to watch, but it is a masterpiece all the same, maybe the best crime drama since the Godfather films. Full Review |
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4.5/5 |
A staggering masterpiece. Full Review |
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A Brazilian "Scarface" Full Review |
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4/5 |
At a full-throttle pace and exciting from beginning to end, directors Lund and Meirrelles grab hold of your attention and don’t let go. Full Review |
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Directors Kátia Lund and Fernando Meirelles stir all the cinematic virtues into this finely-crafted narrative. Full Review |
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8/10 |
It's a grim epitaph for hypocrisy, and the film provides no comfortable answers for solving any of the problems it so well describes. Full Review |
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3/4 |
Difficult to watch but hard to look away from. Full Review |
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4.5/5 |
We've seen this story before, more or less -- the blood, the budding psychopaths, the all-too-young victims of urban decay -- but never quite like this. Full Review |
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3.5/4 |
As we see kids of no more than ten or twelve run through the streets with guns shooting those who don't give them what they want, we can't help but pity them. Full Review |
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4/4 |
“City of God” is a movie that, for the lack of a better term, incites us. It elicits a response. It pounds away at us until we break... Full Review |
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The living conditions it projects are as horrendous as I had feared, but the movie is surprisingly easy to take as a rollicking homicidal entertainment. Full Review |
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5/5 |
Films like City of God are a wake-up call that something must change. Yet the only answer it finds is the most daunting question - "How?" Full Review |
CommentLatest News for City of God
November 21, 2008:
UK Critics Consensus: Does Ridley Scott’s Body Of Lies Ring True? Is Blindness Blinding Or Bland?
It's a varied pick of films in the UK cinemas this week; we have Sir Ridley Scott's latest collaboration with Russell Crowe, the CIA thriller, Body Of Lies. Julianne Moore and... More...
February 28, 2008:
Exclusive Photos: City of God Sequel City of Men
Two young men struggle to stay afloat amid the drugs, violence, and poverty of Brazil's slums in the big-screen spin-off of Fernando Meirelles' critically acclaimed 2002 film,... More...
July 11, 2005:
Fraser, Mos Def and Ms. Moreno to Star in Brazilian Thriller
Brendan Fraser ("The Mummy") will topline Millennium Films' "Journey to the End of the Night" for "Manito" writer/director Eric Eason, says... More...
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