O invasor, l'intrus

I picked up this movie because I love Brazilian cinema and I am always on the lookout for good, new Brazilian movies. I read the reviews on this movie, with people raving about striking the film was and comparing it to "Cidade de Deus". In addition to that, looking at the film festival awards it won, I thought I'd made a good choice. Boy, did I turn out to be wrong.

This film is an unorganized, dysfunctional, fruitless mess. The story had potential. The idea of two men hiring a hit-man to take out their partner and then that hit-man turning around and forcing himself into their business, could've been interesting. It could've been played in a comedic way, or it could've been played in a threatening and frightening way.

Instead, the movie tries a little of both and succeeds at neither. At times the movie presents Miklos' character as someone who we should fear, other times he's seen as a joke, heckling the construction company's workers and bringing rappers into the office.

The only bright spot is that some of these actors give good performances. Marco Ricca as Ivan gives a great portrait of a man consumed by fear and guilt and we watch him spiral out of control. Although again, the movie flubs up his character, introducing us to his wife in the beginning, only to never show her again or really explain their marriage or why their relationship is so distant.

My short comment for this flick is go pick it up. Chances are you are going to be positively surprised by a diversity of elements superbly explored in this criminal thriller. There is no way the character of Miklos, claiming and pushing for room in every way possible, wont push your nerves to the edge...2 thumbs up!

This plot had me guessing all the way to the end, and what an ending !

I was especially struck by the apt depiction of a corrupt and dangerous underworld, Anisio's very convincing performance as a threatening unscrupulous monster from the ghetto, and how alien his attitude was to the mannerly and typically ordered behaviour of the businessmen who's lives he becomes entangled with.

I enjoyed being made uncomfortable by the idea that this order (the boring business world) can be turned upside down by a character like Anisio who doesn't realise or care about any rules or etiquette, and like a vampire once invited over the threshold, has the power to do what he wants. An obvious theme is the retribution summed up by the cliche 'those who live by the sword die by the sword', or in other words if you dabble in crime a criminal end awaits you.

Extremely tense thriller set in the urban chaos of São Paulo, the biggest and ugliest third world nightmare in Brazilian urbania. For the sake of making it easy for anyone who is curious about this intriguing and truly well made film, it has the grit of Mexican feature "Amores Perros" with a character not too far off Max Cady, from both Cape Fears, although this is not, by any means, a film about a psychopath. Two partners (Alexandre Borges and Marco Ricca) in a construction company pay hitman Anisio (Miklos) to off their third partner (and majority share holder) in said construction outfit. The murder is blamed on the city, but things begin to look very grim indeed when witty and charismatic walking nightmare Anisio decides he wants to be around the ever so nervous partners in crime, not only trespassing but, more importantly, deconstructing the strict social codes that make up Brazilian society. Anisio turns poverty into an attitude and he wants in. The look is almost entirely handheld, grainy, the performances outstanding throughout, especially so as first time actor (and member of classic Brazilian pop band 'Titãs'), Paulo Miklos, dazzles and baffles the viewer with his pretty funny social terror.

I saw the film at the Brasília film Fest in November 2001. It has since done very well in Sundance and Berlin. Kleber Mendonça Filho

One can say almost the same things about this Brazilian movie, which won a top prize in the Sundance festival, that have been said about "City of God": both have received a sort of Hollywood treatment. But this one, though, has a sense of humor almost absent in "City of God", and to my knowledge it's one of the few Latin American movies that depict the attraction of some girls of the middle and high classes to the hip hop culture, and the young men of lower classes. In Panama, for example, fed up with the lack of authenticity and the false values of their milieus, the young women are attracted to the exciting and often violent events they experience alongside their urban anti-heroes. In spite of its formulaic structure and ending, it's an ironic, funny movie not to be missed.