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Dancing_P [ 8.5 ]
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The ultimate example of stylistic excess actually working in favor of a movie. The stuff in this movie isn't really original: a kid narrates his life in a slum, surrounded by crime and the colorful people that commit these crimes. But the filmmaking is so electric here that it feels like nothing you've ever seen before. The film centers around Rocket, a young man from the Brazilian slums of the City of God who dreams of becoming a photographer. He pursues his dream of finding a legitimate job while his entourage sinks deeper in a life of drug-dealing and crime. Truly epic in scope, Fernando Meirelles' adaptation of a Brazilian best-selling novel is one of those rare movies that manage to make style over substance work wonderfully. I don't know what else to say.
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scottwblack [ 5.5 ]
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An ultra-violent Brazilian crime drama that walks the very thin line between art and exploitation for most of its running time. While I enjoyed the film's slick visual style (it was no surprise to learn that Meirelles is a successful commercial director in Brazil), I wonder if it makes the all the casual violence seem a bit too cool....
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DokBrowne [ 7.5 ]
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What initially comes across as an episodic panorama of a dangerous slum ends up being the legend of a notorious crime boss. I assumed it was telling the story of its narrator, but instead it shifts to focus the story, suspense, and our engagement therein on the rise and fall of Li'l Ze, and how he affects a score of supporting characters (including said narrator, whose role is mostly just as our third-person observer/window into this world). I also assumed, whether relevant to a review of this film or not, that it was more grand in scale than this, and visually stunning, too. So the fact that it beared almost none of the characteristics I thought I'd read about made watching it at first a letdown (I was expecting a grandiose endeavor, not an engrossing series of story fragments) and then a relief. The movie is very well-acted, and the division of the story into individual character threads, a la "Pulp Fiction" and a million others, helps disguise and refresh the familiarity of the plot at hand. It's a useful gimmick.
All in all I can't think of anything profound to conclude about the film - it's emotionally involving, never boring, lots of memorable characters and scenes, a strong directing debut, but not necessarily an outstanding work. If it matters.
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jeff_v [ 7.5 ]
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City of God features almost non-stop violence and is directed to within an inch of its life. If this sounds like a movie for you, it probably is. Comparison have been made to Scorsese, calling it the Brazilian Goodfellas. I don't think it has nearly the same scope (or ambivalence about its protagonist). It's more similar to Menace II Society. Still, it's an engrossing film with several stunning set-pieces (the dancehall scene, the apartment scene).
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| Weighted Rating | : 7.2 |
| No. Ratings | : 11 | |
| No. Reviews | : 4 | |
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