Review of Elite Squad (2007) by Tom B — 11 Jul 2011

Elite and Brilliant Brazilian cops action.

Another Brazilian masterpiece, Elite Squad (or BOPE) focuses on an elite police team fighting crime, rather than being it. Like City of God and other crime dramas it has moments of fast delivery (subtitles), action, suspense, gritty realism and individuality.

The look of the film is superbly real and the characters are enjoyable, being part of a great insight into Rio's slum favela crime life (in 1997). There are three main characters, Nascimento (a BOPE leader needing to take a lesser role as he deals with stress and his newborn), Matias (an intellectual wannabe lawyer) and Neto (a crazy, hungry BOPE applicant). There are several other main people too, including friends, other cops and the drug dealer gangs.

Elite Squad is a top foreign film movie, being interesting, engaging, intelligent and most importantly a believably realistic look at the slums in Brazil and the super-cop policing tackling drug barons. The film also touches upon corruption and education.

For me the film starts well, dips and then recovers excellently with the intense and brutal training camp. A great film, full of tension, toughness, brutality, and much more.