Tropa de Elite or Elite Squad, as sounds the English translation, is a Brazilian action movie, one of the best ever made. The international critic is almost for the first time in agreement. It has an 8.0 imdb rate, a very big one.
The Elite Squad was an outstanding commercial success, and became a cultural phenomenon in Brazil. The film won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. Its sequel, The Elite Squad – The Enemy Within, released in Brazil on October 8, 2010, holds industry records in the country for ticket sales and gross revenue. – Wikipedia
Director José Padilha is known for a documentary, Bus 174, which examines an incident (a young man from a poor background, wrong planed a robbery and ended up holding the passengers on a bus hostage for four hours) and what life is like in the slums or favelas of Rio de Janeiro and how the criminal justice system in Brazil treats the lower classes. Within the film, Padilha interviews former and current street children, members of the Rio police force, the highly regarded Rio BOPE police team, family members, and sociologists. He wanted Tropa de Elite to be a documentary too, but it came out better as an action movie. The script was written by Bráulio Mantovani, based on the book Elite da Tropa by sociologist Luiz Eduardo Soares and two former BOPE captains, André Batista and Rodrigo Pimentel. In Portuguese, BOPE stands for Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais.
Wagner Moura – Elite Squad
[source]
The baseline of the movie is the story of Nascimento’s, who is the captain of BOPE (Special Forces Operations Battalion) which can be compared to SWAT. Nascimento needs a replacement and he needs to find the right person, someone who has all of the qualities the job demands. Two guys come up to be this person but none of them have all it takes.
Neto (with the riffle) and Matias
[source]
Neto has the attitude, the heart, but he’s not as smart and centered as his best buddy, Matias. The only thing they have in common which is mandatory for the job, is the honesty and the will of changing things for the better.
Elite Squad – English Poster
[source]
Year of release : 2007
imdb rate 8.0
Directed by José Padilha
Written by André Batista, John Kaylin (adaptation), Bráulio Mantovani, José Padilha, Rodrigo Pimentel, Luiz Eduardo Soares
Actors: Wagner Moura, André Ramiro, Caio Junqueira, Milhem Cortaz, Fernanda Machado, Maria Ribeiro, Paulo Vilela, Fernanda de Freitas, André Felipe, Fábio Lago
115′
Next, you’ll have the American trailer. Believe me, it’s one of the best movie of it’s genre ever made. And if this one is not the best, maybe the sequel, the 2010 release, will be. I’m going to write about it in the future, maybe even tomorrow.
Watching the movie in original with subtitles makes it what it is, authentic and impressing. It shows clearly how everyone is at the same time guilty and victim in the whole war against drugs: the “doing good” NGOs, the politicians, the corrupt police and the not-corrupt but truculent “Elite Squad”. In not too many words, you have to see it.
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Copyright © 2012 Rodolfo Grimaldi Blog – Tropa de Elite
[…] outside this country. I have reviewed in this subcategory, other two related Brazilian movies, Tropa de Elite and Elite Squad II: The Enemy Within. This last one, is the greatest Brazilian box-office success […]