Amor Bandido

A girl in Rio de Janeiro, estranged from her bullying detective father, falls in love with a boy. She works in a strip club. He has an angelic face and heavenly body, but is also a cold-blooded sociopath. To complicate matters, the boy's crimes are being investigated by the girl's very nasty and hypocritical father.

This little Brazilian gem -- with all its flaws and faults -- is a powerful film. It looks life, with all its brutality and injustice, right in the face. Despite their being kicked around by life and the police, the two naive lovers try to make a life together against all odds. It's a wild dream, though, and she knows it. But one feels her dilemma. It's impossible not to love this beautiful and seductive outlaw.

Theirs is a story worth of Greek tragedy.

A heady mix of sex, violence, murder and police brutality, this film is apparently based on a real-life Brazilian crime case. The film is technically faulty, with fuzzy focus, washed colour, poor sound, and abrupt editing, however this adds to the voyeuristic sensation the viewer feels. The two teenage lovers are vulnerably youthful, and their nude sex scenes uninhibited and at times quite startling, for example when Toninho, shortly after first meeting Sandra, quickly strips naked and proceeds to fondle and force himself upon her. The violence is no less confronting, and parallel with the story of the two ill-fated lovers is the account of a police investigation into a series of murders which Sandra's estranged father, Galvao, is conducting. I don't wish to give any more of the story away, but for those who would enjoy a vivid and authentic look at the sordid underbelly of Rio's demi-monde, it would be hard to go past this disturbing study.

This strange brazillian piece is entertaining as crazy as it gets, it's confusing in a political point of view but still contains some intelligent criticism between the lines since the very beginning.

Very good film by Fábio Barreto, a sexploitation underworld crime drama thriller in Rio de Janeiro. With excellent performances of Paulo Gracindo and Cristina Aché, good cinematography and a very engaging story, it has to parallel segments that merge while the film advances. Inspector Galvão, an evil harsh policeman used to torture just like his colleagues during military dictatorship, has a longstanding rupture with his daughter, who was turned into a prostitute in a strip club in red light area of Copacabana. The veteran cop is also engaged in capturing a serial killer of taxi drivers. On the other hand, she starts a toxic but effective affair with the misogynous former lover and pimp of a transgender roomate of hers. The bizarre story written by José Louzeiro and Leopoldo Serran works very well, and this is one of the great Brazilian movies from the 70's in my opinion.