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City of God (2003)
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Reviews Counted:146
Fresh:134
Rotten:12
Average Rating:8.2/10
Consensus: A shocking and disturbing, but always compelling look at life in the slums of Rio de Janiero.
Runtime: 2 hrs 10 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
US 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... 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 naive teen Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) views himself. His attempts in illegal activity fail as he finds potential victims too friendly. Equally unsuccessful in love, he regularly fails to lose his virginity. Blood spills throughout the streets of the Ciudad de Deus as gang leader Li'l Ze (Leandro Firmino da Hora) is challenged by local druglords and a gang of pre-teens known as the Runts. Rocket shoots all of this action with his weapon of choice, a camera. Director Fernando Meirelles combines visual flashiness with dark history in telling the story of three decades of unrest in underground Rio de Janiero. Technically flawless, the Brazilian film uses a rapid-cutting style to flash back and forth in time. Cinematographer Cesar Charlone shoots with an overexposed glow in a film that may seem numb to violence, but reveres photography. Director Meirelles was assisted by Katia Lund, a filmmaker who had previously shot in the Rio ghettos. [More]
Starring: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino da Hora, Matheus Nachtergaele, Seu Jorge
Starring: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino da Hora, Matheus Nachtergaele, Seu Jorge, Gera Camilo, Renato de Souza, Karina Falcao, Graziela Moretto, Roberta Rodriguez Silvia
Director: Fernando Meirelles, Katia Lund
Director: Fernando Meirelles, Katia Lund
Screenwriter: Fernando Meirelles, Braulio Mantovani
Producer: Andrea Barata Ribeiro, Mauricio Andrade Ramos
Studio: Miramax Films
Reviews for City of God
A powerful and haunting film that explores the myriad of stories that lie deep within the slums of Rio, City Of God shocks, enlightens and above all affects us by taking us into a world where drugs and organised crime are a way of life.
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.
Often masterful in its distillation of exposition into pure sight and sound energy... but equally frustrating in its attention-grabbing lack of focus.
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.
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.
Directors Kátia Lund and Fernando Meirelles stir all the cinematic virtues into this finely-crafted narrative.
It's a grim epitaph for hypocrisy, and the film provides no comfortable answers for solving any of the problems it so well describes.
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.
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.
“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...
Latest 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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