Review of Elite Squad (2007) by Galen M — 18 Jun 2012

Don't expect to have your liberal morals massaged by this film. Don't expect to sympathise with the protagonist, or come away feeling the 'Elite Squad' are ultimately in the right. In fact you can just about kiss all your expectations of a heroic cop movie goodbye.

The story isn't particularly strong, and the motives of the protagonist and narrator [one and the same] are fairly weak in that all he needs to do are find a replacement, and he happens to be going about his day to day work ridding the slums of drug lords by simply 'eliminating them'. It is a very strict set of morals the Rio Elite Squad live by: Drugs are bad, bent cops are bad, but everything else is pretty much OK so long as it gets the job done.

All in all it is pretty morally reprehensible, but your left with the feeling the film wants you to think the ends justify the means. Well perhaps someone who has grown up on the streets of Rio would agree with such a message, but me, I'll keep my liberal pie thank you very much, I would like, at some point, to be able to eat it.