Elite Squad 2

Launched in 2007, Elite Squad became one of the greatest icons of Brazilian pop culture in the twenty-first century. Victim of an unprecedented controversy involving piracy in the country, the film won a legion of fans, who repeated in the streets the jargon they heard in the cinema - like "pede para sair" (beg to leave), and "faca na caveira" (knife in the skull, which means you are not to be played with).

In Elite Squad 2 (2010), although unofficially regarded as the most watched Brazilian film of the decade, the numbers at the box office disappointed producers, as well as accusations that the film would be fascist. The greatest merit of José Padilha and Braulio Mantovani, director and screenwriter of the film respectively, was to prove that there was a story to tell which exceeded the one seen on the original from 2007. At first, the movie even deceives the viewer by presenting the same song in the opening credits ("Elite Squad" by Tihuana ) and the same idea of the teacher/representative of human rights that does not understand the fight against crime and is always sided with the bad guys, but then Elite Squad 2 parts to a totally different conception of the first Troop.

The police corruption is also discussed, but it is now seen as a tool of a much more complex game of power. The film released in elections (October 2010) is symptomatic, since we can see that politicians portrayed in the production are not much different from those who were elected to public office recently.

In Elite Squad 2, Captain Nascimento (played once again with brightness by Wagner Moura ) is promoted Deputy Secretary of Public Safety of the State of Rio de Janeiro and is enchanted by owning apparatus to finally get to combat the crime system and the corruption. However, Nascimento gradually discovers that people around him are also involved in crime and his fight will be even tougher. At the same time, the protagonist has to deal with problems with the son Rafael (Pedro Van Held) and his ex-wife Rosane (Maria Ribeiro), that even apart do not accept the violent routine of the Captain, who is now Colonel .

Keeping the same hits from the first feature with regard to photography, editing and soundtrack , Elite Squad 2 still has the quality to prove complex. The film - and the problems of violence in Rio de Janeiro and other major cities in Brazil - cannot be explained in a few lines, and therefore the option of making a sequel to show another aspect of the matter is absolutely memorable. Of course some sequences, in particular the action, will remember Elite Squad (2007), but this second film tries its best to avoid redundancy.


Elite Squad 2 is not a documentary about the system, but it definitely 'points its finger' on a few important issues. The film can be seen only as a political action thriller, but in my opinion it is much more than pure entertainment.