StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

eagandersongil 2286/5000 "Tropa de Elite", the purest and crude record of Brazilian society, hypocrisy, profit, partiality and innocence, where policemen mistreat "innocents" to arrest bandits, and rich people finance crime and indirectly kill police with a pacifist speech. A script that talks about traffic, crime and favela by a different angle, the angle of the police, more specifically the BOPE, a special regiment of the military police, who tells us the story is Captain Nascimento, who mixes with the story of Mathias and Neto, young honest police officers who seek to fight organized crime, the elite troop script is accurate, but not perfect, it has many parallel plots that end up not being deepened, but it has a great construction of characters besides being brutally honest , even sometimes abusing scenes and phrases of effect - which eventually made the movie explode on its release. The morale of "Elite Troop" is that we are all wrong, there is no cure or a solution, no matter the side, any action taken ends up being harmful to someone, and often, to someone you want to help, before exploding the fashion of polarization in Brazil, the Padilha film already discussed concepts that are now completely disturbed, José Padilha directs using techniques of Martin Scorsese, sometimes even better than the American director himself, with scenes of incredible shootings and absurdly verisimilitude, German of a camera use without tripe magnifico, not to mention the great narrations in off that serve as a perfect support for the script, not to mention the precise and striking soundtrack, which reflects in an accurate way what is the long. The film is also very well acted, with main highlights for Wagner Moura and Fernanda Machado, besides the sober and mature performance of Andre Ramiro. Tropa de Elite is the movie that opens Jose Padilha to the world, the good and competent director is released to the Holywoodian market, where he ends up not doing well, but ends up finding his talent again when directing series for netflix. "Tropa De Elite" is not perfect, but it is a film that exposes much of Brazilian culture to the world, not only negatively, precisely because of this, "Tropa De Elite" is difficult to be seen by foreigners because the film is very, very Brazilian.

chaos-rampant Another movie about the external world of organized inadequacies, this one set in Brazil and also about deep-rooted suffering in the cogs that give rise to that world. We race through, seeing with a certain narrative eye that tries to make sense, so let's see a few observations made by that eye.It lambasts several worlds. The world of corrupt cops who take bribes to do their job and still more bribes to look the other way, seen as ignorant bureaucrats or yet another gang. The world of privileged university kids who like to harp on about power structures but become unwitting cogs in the chain of abuse when they go to the barrio to score drugs for their socially conscious lifestyle. The world of drugs, of course, with petty chieftains ruling their own tribes of hapless kids.It's an angry film; angry at what it sees as the competing selfishness of different tribes only looking to please a narrow self interest. It begins with two rookie cops who it presents as extraordinarily competent and who just want to do work that untangles knots, but become stifled by bureaucracy and ignorance. They finally enlist in the special ops squad to come out on the other end as merciless rambos as the only way to get something done; direct action the only way to cut through the ambiguity and indifference.It doesn't shy away from showing horrible police brutality and not the Dirty Harry cartoon. Kids are beaten, suffocated with plastic bags, and almost raped with a wooden broom to spill the beans. The point here is that it could have airbrushed this view but didn't and chose instead to confront the reality. Had it come out in the US, it would have been the most controversial films that year.But just as we think that in their frantic chase to restore order they end up brutalizing an innocent kid, torture leads them to the right place. In the end this eye comes with its own blindness. It's all a bit of a mess apart from this like we're seeing parts of different episodes of a season of crime TV.

MartinHafer This film is about a special elite force--one that would make the American SWAT teams look like wimps. In a city (Rio) where drug dealers rule the slums and cops are mostly on the take, the only hope is this group of seemingly insane special police, BOPE. The story is about two recruits, Matias and Neto--two regular policemen who are sick of the corruption and are eventually recruited by BOPE. The leader of the group, Capitão Nascimento, looks to one of these men to eventually replace him because the job is literally driving him insane.If you are looking for a nice film, then DO NOT watch this film. "Elite Squad" is gritty, nasty and very, very violent. Although the film is rated R, I think this rating is actually deceiving, as the film is more intense than most R films--with a lot of violence, torture and an attempted rape near the end that is horrifying. It is NOT a film for kids and it is hard to watch. This being said, it IS a well made film--sort of like a non-stop roller-coaster of a film. Realism...gritty realism is what makes this an excellent (but nasty) film. If you can handle it, then by all means watch it. Just don't say I didn't warn you.The last three Brazilian movies I watched were "City of God", "Central Station" and "Elite Squad". Is it any wonder, then, that I plan never to visit Brazil?! I have no idea if these films are exaggerations of the cities, but all three depict a hellish war zone--not a place I'd ever want to see for myself. And, if the films ARE accurate, then I can't believe that the Olympics are going to be held there very soon! You think I am overreacting? See the films for yourself!

Jose Cruz Elite Squad is one of the few really good Brazilian movies (over the past 15 years there have been around 4-5 truly good Brazilian movies and only one truly great, City of God). This film is a highly brutal portrayal of the proxy war existing in the crime infested districts of Rio de Janeiro and depicts a deconstruction of the main character, an elite police officer who has to deal with the heavy psychological burden of directing an elite police squad in operations against the heavily armed gangsters and also depicts the process in which the captain Nascimento chooses his successor for this low paid/high risk job among two candidates who reflect differing qualities which he values and which these characters are living embodiment.