Tropa De Elite

[Elano]

http://www.tropadeeliteofilme.com.br/

Tropa De Elite is a Brazilian film released on October 5, 2007. The movie is a semi-fictional account of the BOPE (Portuguese: Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais), the Special Police Operations Battalion of the Rio de Janeiro Military Police. It is the second feature film and first fiction film of director José Padilha, who had previously directed the acclaimed documentary Bus 174. The script was written by Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Bráulio Mantovani, based on the book Elite da Tropa by sociologist Luiz Eduardo Soares and two former BOPE captains, André Batista and Rodrigo Pimentel.

When the film was first leaked, it caused a major controversy for its portrayal of Capitão Nascimento's unpunished police brutality in favelas. After the exhibition in Berlin Festival, critic Jay Weissberg, in a Variety article, called the movie "a one-note celebration of violence-for-good that plays like a recruitment film for fascist thugs".[7] Michel Misse, a researcher for Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, in an interview to Carta Capital, tried to explain why Capitão Nascimento is cheered: "as the judiciary system cannot keep up with the demand for punishment, some may think civil rights leads to unpunishment. And then, they want illegal solutions. That's why Capitão Nascimento is called".[8]

The other major controversy the movie has sparked regards the responsibility of those whose recreational drug use results in the financing of illegal activities. In the movie, Capitão Nascimento accuses a middle-class college student of being responsible for the deaths in the favelas, pointing out that in order to have the drugs available for parties, many children have to be drawn into the ranks of drug dealers, eventually meeting an early death.

The movie, set in 1997, depicts the story of Captain Nascimento, a BOPE captain, who with the imminent birth of his first child, is determined to leave the battalion and find a safer position for the sake of his family, but first he must find a suitable replacement for him. At the same time, the movie focuses on two childhood friends, Matias and Neto, who become cadets in the military police, but become dismayed at the corruption surrounding them. Eventually, both Nascimento and the cadets' paths intersect, when the captain hopes that one of the two may become the substitute he is eager to find, as both decide to join the BOPE.

[CRAFTY]

Sounds interesting. Might rent the movie one day (if it's available, that is).