O Invasor

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.

When their business partner's ethics prevent their company for working on jobs that may be slightly corrupt, Giba and Ivan decide to have him killed. They are recommended to approach a lowlife hitman, Anisio, who takes the job, killing the partner and his wife. However after the job is done Anisio begins to integrate himself in to the company and the lives of Ivan and Giba. This only accelerates Ivan's descent into panic and guilt.

With comparisons to the wonderful City Of God, I decided to give this film a shot and found it to be a very different beast to the aforementioned film, smaller, not as good but still an enjoyable film coming from Brazil. The plot is not perfect; I found it slightly difficult to accept Anisio sudden interest in this company in particular when he likely came into contact with many rich clients before. I imagine that there is a certain comment about the status of Brazil, where the few good people with money are gradually corrupted or invested by those willing to bend rules and take advantage. If this was the aim, it wasn't totally successful as it damaged the central narrative a little bit. Aside from this, the film still works, not so much as a thriller but as a drama as Ivan falls into guilt over his actions - again the attempts to make social comment is worthy but it moves the film away from dramatics by a few degrees.

The cast are pretty good. I felt that Miklos gave a good performance as the hired killer. He seemed quite natural and at ease - even if I hated it when the soundtrack used his band's awful thrash metal music. He was coached by rapper Sabotage, who also has a small role but was killed shortly after the film was released. Ricca descends well in his role and makes it convincing, Borges is suitably seedy and represents the worst of the wealthy class in Brazil I guess. Ximenes role in both the film and the subtext was less clear; her main purpose seemed to be titillation, which, in fairness, she delivered well!

Overall this film works well because it tries to be more than just a drama and more than just a social comment; however it would be too forgiving of me if I didn't note that it did rather fall between these two stools. Despite missing it's mark, it is still a good shot at the target. The direction and writing are both good and they bring about a film that, although flawed, is still interesting and involving even if these aspects are ahead of it's ability to be dramatic or thrilling.

The three main characters are very well portrayed, especially Anisio by rock musician turned into first time actor Paulo Miklos. He is extremely convincing as the lower class trespasser/invader. The film shows very well the snowball effect of getting involved in ever more shady business, the contrast and similarities between the lower and higher classes. How everyone gets carried away by greed and ambition. 9-9,5 out of 10.

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

"O Invasor" is a clear case of an overrated picture and I don't use that word lightly or all that frequently. Decades of hearing about this movie only made me aprehensive and cautious about wanting to see it and when I finally did, I was shocked and amazingly disappointing with it since I got nothing from the experience. Through the years I kept hearing about its "importance", the many awards given to it, the countless highlights about the film's soundtrack, acting, specially from newcomers Sabotagem and Titãs frontman Paulo Miklos, so many great things were said about this film and then...I probably missed something.

Beto Brant's film doesn't show us anything new. The story of two contractors (Marco Ricca and Alexandre Borges) who call up the services of a hired gun (Miklos, amazing!) to eliminate a third partner in their company in order to approve some big project of which we don't exactly how profitable it can be for them. All is done, the man gets killed with his wife but the killer doesn't leave the guys alone: he wants to work for the company in whatever they do and little by little he gets immersed in their lives, the company's work and also begins a relationship with the young daughter (Mariana Ximenes) of the deceased taking her into wild parties. It gets insanely weird when one of the business partners decide to kill the other and paranoia sets in within this group of people, that also brings a random lover (Malu Mader) to one of them.

What could be an accessible story with dark humor and some minor twists is turned into an incoherent mess that doesn't keep the audience engaged, most of the time we are lost in how Brant and his writers presents things (which includes the book's author Marçal Aquino, adaptating his own project even though he didn't even had an ending for the book so he improvised for the movie THEN finished the novel). Many things are not explained, the tension doesn't build in the way it is expected - I was hoping for the Miklos character to go insane each moment went by but instead is the insecure character played by Ricca who ends up in a journey of self-loathing and confusion when he finally gets a gun. Why bothering in using realistic elements if nothing will ring true when things start to unfold? If the idea was to create a chaotic scenario with this intruder guy ruining everyone's lives at least some form of humor could be brought on and let the danger appear with frequency.

It's not 100% wrong but there were times when I thought nothing had salvation in this thing. But there's some good and memorable things here. The real invader, outsider of this movie was the perfect choice for the title role. Paulo Miklos was the best choice for Anisio, the odd man in control of everything.

He is quirky, strange, menacing and he always appear when he's not expected. One could give to this role to any established actor out there and it would be just another fine performance, but having a non-actor capturing your attention with just his presence and a deadly look in his eyes, then you have something special (even though in one quick shot he looks at the camera, surprised to be in the shot and I wonder why Brant left the scene with this goof). Miklos scenes with Mariana are among the best, even though I don't buy much of their relationship and how it develops. Bottom of line, the acting is all good but the movie is so erratic and confusing that the experience is already ruined.

What's so great and so important about "O Invasor"? I don't know. I didn't find anything. There's not a worth seeing story here, nothing is new here, and there wasn't even a decent conclusion to atest we actually had seen something outstanding. Trust me, there are countless of better crime dramas out there, and countless better Brazilian films out there. This is not one of them. 4/10.