O Invasor

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.

IVAN (Marco Ricca) and GILBERTO (Alexandre Borges) are partners in a company together with ESTEVÃO (George Freire), but the first ones contract a professional killer, ANISIO, to murder ESTEVÃO (the plot, at least at the beginning, doesn't explain very well why). The guy does it and after receiving his money he starts blackmailing the two partners, appearing in their company and saying he wants a job there (as supervisor or something…). At the same time he meets MARINA (Mariana Ximenes), daughter of ESTEVÃO, and starts dating with her!

In a story like this, where crime, corruption, betrayal and blackmail go hand in hand, no one is innocent or can be victimized, exception made to MARINA, which is the only person who doesn't know what's going on and didn't betray anyone…

This film portrays with sarcasm the sad and cruel reality which exists in big metropolis like São Paulo, where crime is every day's presence. We can feel irony but also veracity in characters like ANISIO (brilliantly played by Paulo Miklos), which does blackmail to the guys who paid him without any scruples, and even flirts with the daughter of the guy he killed! He really must be a monster to do something like that, but of course I know there're people like him out there, in Brazil or any other place…

It's a very good movie, cruel but truthful, about a sad reality… The acting is great and the soundtrack too.

Sao Paulo is such a subhuman city where the life of a man is quite cheap. This movie deals with the fight between two businessmen to control their company. They'll get into a spiral of murder and contacts with the local mafia of Sao Paulo's lower depths.

"El Invasor" moves between thriller and drama, and has some sequences that are really intense. Although the narrative style is quite debatable the history will get you, because everything in the screen is so frenzy and reckless.

It won't change the history of modern cinema, but it's better than most of the thrillers made in Hollywood these days.

*My rate: 6.5/10

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!