City of God

RS: 4of 4 Stars

2002 Action

How did a Brazilian movie starring no one you ever heard of manage to snag four major 2003 Oscar nominations (directing, editing, cinematography and adapted screenplay)? By vividly blending the color, rhythm and brutality that cuts to the roots of crime in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. The story spins from the 1960s to the 1980s, as street kid Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) takes up photojournalism as a way to bust out and to understand his life. Director Fernando Meirelles shares Rocket's restless energy. He shows us the exhilaration of remorseless killers -- some as young as nine -- who prey on tourists for drug money. That the jolts are set to a dance beat only adds to the horror. Meirelles, whose background is in TV commercials, has been hammered for tarting up a serious issue with his whiplash style. Nuts to that. Meirelles gets inside the heads of kids who don't expect to live past their teens. His film is already influential -- catch Tony Scott's Man on Fire -- and the performances he and co-director Katia Lund get from a cast of non-pros have a no-bull urgency that befits this high-wire act of a movie.