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Created Nov 17, 2008 09:31AM PST • Edited Nov 17, 2008 09:31AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Having been recommended to watch this film, I finally got around to it, and realise that the praise is appropriate: “City of God” is one of those outstanding movies that most people will never watch, but that should be seen by everyone.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Most of the performances here, if not all, are by actors and actresses plucked from the slums that were the basis for the movie. Taking this into account, it’s astonishing how good the cast is, and how so many untrained and inexperienced kids can give such amazing portrayals of kids that aren’t so far removed from what they could have been.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

   The actors who play Rocket (the narrator and protagonist) and Lil’ Ze (somewhat the antagonist throughout, despite not actually being after or against Rocket) are probably to be considered the stars here,and the two actors, untrained as were their castmates, present the confusion and anarchy that dictates the lives of youths in such regions. The menace and psychosis that Lil’ Ze exudes is disturbing, and you do get the idea that the young actor probably knew someone quite akin to his character.

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

   The only woman that could be considered a star would be Alice Braga’s character, whom Rocket falls in love with. Being as she is the one actress to have made something of a career from this movie, she is noticeable and a key component of the narrative, a girl who has no idea what she has gotten into.

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

   As girls do not tend to ingratiate themselves into gang warfare, the women here are presented as anonymous or as eye-candy to the boys, but most hold their own in the narrative, and performance-wise, when they are onscreen the younger and older women are very good actresses.

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

   There are so many, it’s hard to even begin to put a number or an adequate review of them all. What the many young boys and teens provide in the film, as a group, is that idea of gang mentality and gang warfare. They have nothing else, these kids; no education, no chance of bettering themselves, and so they are inevitably drawn to gangs and violence, with bitter and deadly results. It is hard to remember at times that they are actors, and from the youngest (when you see one particularly disturbing scene, you’ll understand) to the oldest, the young men in this film are disturbingly natural.

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Filmed in Rio, and in the very slums that the narrative is staged in, the film provides that little extra semblance of realism and danger, and the extreme poverty and lawlessness in which these kids have to live each day. The starkness of the city, and the natural vistas that are presented through the reality of the setting, combine with the Brazilian music and Portuguese speech to create a distinctly urbane viewing experience.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

    Fernando Meireilles began his globally-recognised career with this film, and taking into account the attention and praise it received, the director should by rights be able to pick any project he wants. Taking street kids and allowing them to play skewed versions of themselves was a brave move, and it pays off amazingly well. For that decision, and for the idea to film within the very slums that the narrative suggests, the director deserves extra credit.

12. Play Very Good 3.5

    The problem with foreign films will always be that subtitles distract, and detract, from the narrative. Here however, you do a get a sense of the more weighted and important dialogues, which is testament to the actors and director.

13. Music Good 3.0

    There is a lot of Brazilian samba, jazz and various localised music used, with only a small proportion of the soundtrack being an actual non-diagetic soundtrack. This helps to contribute to the idea that we are watching real life, and not a movie, reinforcing the reality of the settings (nightclubs, radios and such help to put this across also).

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    The film is outstanding in this regard, with the slums and favelas of Rio presented as a never-ending network of sprawling tunnels, shanty homes and roads, often filled with youths, guns, blood and death. The scene that bookends the film (that of a chicken running for freedom through the streets, pursued by gangs of kids) is probably the best indicator of the visual acumen the film presents; we never lose the chicken, and we run alongside it as well, seemingly through labyrinthe amounts of passages. The good and bad sides of Brazil are presented in all their clarity; beautiful beaches are compared with streets filled with dead and grimy hovels holding gun-wielding children waiting to ambush others.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.5

    The film is violent pretty much from the outset, and whilst it is in Portuguese, it doesn’t mean you can’t read the profanity! There are also scenes of sex and hinted-at rape.

17. Sex Titillating 2.0

18. Violence Brutal 3.0

19. Rudeness Profane 2.6

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    At the end, we’re told that the narrative is based on a true story, and having seen what the audience has seen, it is not at all hard to believe this. There’s no indication that everything that happened was true, but what is there to say that the events have not ever happened in such a situation?

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0