CITY OF GOD (Fernando Meirelles, 2003) 7

Reviewed: January 18th, 2003

I don't care if it is based on a true story; City of God is a repugnant travesty, one of the most callous, utterly despicable movies I've ever seen. To even call it derivative of countless other films (especially Goodfellas), is to give it way too much credit. Devoid of even a modicum of compassion or humanity, for two hours and ten minutes we're treated to souped up visuals of people blowing each other's fucking heads off. Again and again and again and again and then some more. City of God offers you nothing about Brazilian culture despite an obligatory, 'Hey look there are horrific slums in which human life ain't worth dirt and people kill.' While that's terrible, a movie needs more to run on. What is the purpose of this film? Where are the real human beings? Believe it or not, even vicious killers have lives outside their gruesome murders, despite City of God's vehement denial of such a fact. Women are treated as blank commodities and only one person escapes the unceasing horror: the contrived narrator who can hardly even be considered a "character" he's such a passive, fake, bore. Everyone else gets killed. Then some people take their place. Then those people get killed. Then some other people take their place. I'd love someone to go through the film with a stopwatch and find the longest portion of celluloid in which someone is not killed. I'm betting no more than four minutes. City of God makes no attempt to understand why Brazilian slums are war zones. It just gleefully endorses the fact. It's an endorsement by proxy; if you film over two hours of violence in an MTV-style, sleek, playful, "exciting" fashion, you're doing nothing to either compute, challenge or condemn the action. You're passing it off as pure entertainment which is sickening, really.

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