Average Rating: 5.1/10
Reviews Counted: 34
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 16
Brutal, action heavy, Brazilian cop film with a pointless voiceover. Lacks flair, overdoes the violence and is never quite sure where its morals lie.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 4
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 2
Brutal, action heavy, Brazilian cop film with a pointless voiceover. Lacks flair, overdoes the violence and is never quite sure where its morals lie.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 14,520
For decades, the South American metropolis of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has clocked in as staggeringly lethal. Its violence-scarred and blood-strewn ghettos (or "favelas") are regularly patrolled by crazed drug gangs whose open-fire battles with police often spread out onto the main thoroughfares and turn ordinary civilians into casualties. In response, the Brazilian government formed a crack paramilitary force known as the BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais, or Special Police
R, 1 hr. 54 min.
Aug 17, 2007 Wide
Oct 28, 2008
IFC Films
All Critics (34) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (18) | Rotten (16)
For nearly two hours, Padilha bombards viewers with senseless, sickening violence for its own sake.
Elite Squad is a relentlessly ugly, unpleasant, often incoherent assault on the senses from Brazil.
[José Padilha] recariously pitches the squad's brute force as less a necessary evil than the outgrowth of an existing evil -- a no-win situation that mocks liberal ideals and warps conservative pragmatism into domestic terrorism.
It bears a resemblance to viscerally exciting seventies urban thrillers like The French Connection, in which only the fascists could do what needed to be done.
A satisfactory enough cop movie, but not one that people will still be name checking years hence
Given that Brazil, as a Latin American moviemaking powerhouse, steadily produces vibrant, vital films of real impact and humanity, it's a crime itself that Elite Squad may be the only Brazilian film that American audiences see this year.
A depressing film that celebrates brute strength as the only means to stem the tide of violence and crime in Rio de Janeiro.
With no star names and a tough subject, it will be hard sell despite being a runaway hit on its home turf.
A poor man's City of God that suggests the only answer to the problems of Brazil's slums are blazing guns wielded by a neo-fascist police force.
Trying to address important and serious social issues in this violent world rather than just creating something sensationalistic or exploitative gives Elite Squad an edge over normal police thrillers.
Elite Squad can't decide whether it wants to pull the lid back on what urban decay has wrought or simply open up a can of whup ass.
Elite Squad succeeds at putting the worst of the violent spectacles on screen, primarily through a series of nicely staged shootouts and torture sequences.
The film's message is that all of society is corrupt, so it doesn't matter who gets killed. It's a propaganda movie that shows no empathy for its characters or for its audience.
Padilha succumbs to monotonous, hollow flamboyance with his City of God clone.
The moral dilemmas are gripping, but the film takes itself far too seriously to ever connect with us.
A film that simply doesn't have enough cinematic flair to make it a better than average cops and robbers thriller.
Padilha gets as close to the daily violence as City of God, though this feels more like a documentary than an epic.
Padilha's style, honed in his hijack documentary Bus 174, is verismo with a vengeance. For two hours the viewer feels as hand-held as the camera, hauled about by the neck.
As for the plot, flashy editing and an over-reliance on jittery handheld cameras mean you'll struggle to tell what's going on - if you haven't already given up by then.
Nothing is clear-cut in this intense brew of brutality, stupidity and genuine tragedy. We're left lamenting that it will go on, unless Brazil engages its brain before its fist.
For some reason, I just couldn't get into this movie. It was well done, but just too much craziness going on for me, I guess.
August 30, 2011Super Reviewer
A pair of young recruits join Rio De Janeiro's police "Elite Squad" and are given the task of cleaning up a gang controlled slum before a papal visit. Infernal Affairs meets Full Metal Jacket in this Brazilian crime drama about a police unit that's a cross between SWAT, Internal Affairs and the Gestapo. They are shown
December 22, 2007
Super Reviewer
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