| Elite Squad | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | José Padilha |
| Written by | Bráulio Mantovani José Padilha Rodrigo Pimentel |
| Based on | Elite da Tropa by André Batista Luiz Eduardo Soares Rodrigo Pimentel |
| Produced by | José Padilha Marcos Prado |
| Starring | Wagner Moura Caio Junqueira André Ramiro |
| Cinematography | Lula Carvalho |
| Edited by | Daniel Rezende |
| Music by | Pedro Bromfman |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures (Latin America) The Weinstein Company (International) |
Release dates | August 17, 2007 (2007-08-17) (Rio de Janeiro) (premiere)[1]
|
Running time | 115 minutes |
| Country | Brazil |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Budget | R$ 11 million (US$ 8 million) |
| Box office | R$ 28 million (US$ 14.1 million)[2] |
Elite Squad (Portuguese:Tropa de Elite,pronounced[ˈtɾɔpɐdʒieˈlitʃi]lit. '"Elite Corps"') is a 2007 Braziliancrime film based on the novelElite da Tropa byLuiz Eduardo Soares, André Batista, andRodrigo Pimentel. Directed byJosé Padilha (from a screenplay by Padilha,Bráulio Mantovani, and Pimentel), the film starsWagner Moura, Caio Junqueira, and André Ramiro, and tells the story of Roberto Nascimento (Moura), a captain with theBatalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais, or BOPE ("special police operations battalion"), who leads a police crackdown on a series ofRio de Janeirofavelas in-preparation for the Brazilianstate visit ofPope John Paul II.
Inspired by theMilitary Police of Rio, and their related arms,Elite Squad is the second feature and first film by Padilha, after the documentaryBus 174 (2002).
Elite Squad was abox office hit in Brazil and became acultural phenomenon there. The film won theGolden Bear at the 2008Berlin Film Festival, but received mixed reviews. Itssequel,Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, was released in Brazil on October 8, 2010, and holds industry records in the country for high ticket sales and gross revenue.
In 2015, the Brazilian Film Critics Association aka Abraccine votedElite Squad the30th greatest Brazilian film of all time, in its list of the 100 best Brazilian films.[3]
In 1997, BOPE Captain Roberto Nascimento leads an operation to secure the Turano neighbourhood beforePope John Paul II's overnight visit at theArchbishop's home near the favela. He searches for a successor at the unit in order to switch to a desk job before his pregnant wife Rosane gives birth to his son.
RookiePMERJ officers and best friends André Matias and Neto Gouveia handle menial work as instructed to them by their corrupt seniors: Neto supervises the policeauto mechanic shop, whilst Matias is responsible for registering and filing police complaints in a small archive office. André also attendslaw school, where he begins a relationship with Maria, and meets her friends Roberta and Edu; all three are members of aNGO that operates in an area ruled by drug lord Baiano. Baiano provides marijuana to Matias' friends, who sell it on campus. André also befriends Romerito, a boy who, like himself, suffers frommyopia.
Neto applies to another department, but his transfer is denied. Disgusted by corruption and led by fellow officer Fábio, Neto and André steal the police'sbribe money to fix as many police cars as possible. Their superior, Captain Oliveira, finds out and demotes them tokitchen work as punishment and orders Fábio—who he believes stole from him—to meet drug traffickers at a communityfunk party inMorro da Babilônia to enquire about payment. Fábio believes this is a set-up to kill him and discreetly warns Neto and André, who rush to a vantage point and, presuming Fabio will be shot by another officer, accidentally fire asniper rifle, causing a deadly gunfight between the officers and traffickers; as André and Neto attempt to flee the scene, Nascimento and his men arrive and rescue all the officers. After the shootout, André is photographed by the press. André and Neto apply for BOPE, motivated by their honesty and devotion, and eagerness for action. At the NGO office, Baiano confronts Maria and her friends with a newspaper featuring André's picture and threatens to kill them if they bring policemen inside his territory.
The BOPE training proves to be gruesome, with many candidates—including Fábio (who applied as a way to avoid Oliveira)— quitting, but both Neto and André successfully pass; Neto celebrates by getting a BOPEtattoo on his arm. André's relationship with Maria ends and he confronts Edu, ordering him to arrange a meet with Romerito the next day to give him a pair of glasses. Edu reveals André's plan to Baiano, who sets an ambush to kill him. Neto informs André of a job interview at a law firm that will conflict with meeting Romerito, and volunteers to deliver the glasses in his place: this results in Neto being mortally wounded. When Baiano prepares to execute him, he notices his BOPE tattoo and goes into hiding for fear of retaliation, but not before abducting and executing Roberta and Rodriguez as his payback for allowing a BOPE officer into the slum.
After Neto's funeral, André, Nascimento and other BOPE officers make daily incursions into Baiano's slum, torturing several dealers into revealing his whereabouts; when one of them reveals Edu tipped Baiano, an enraged Matias storms into apeace walk, beats Edu, and insults Maria and the others. BOPE interrogates several of the locals before finally locating and cornering Baiano; despite Baiano's pleads not to, Nascimento orders André to shoot him in the face with ashotgun, both as revenge for Neto's death and as a finalrite of passage for BOPE. André cocks the gun and the screen fades to white as a shot is heard.
The movie is based onElite da Tropa,[5] a book by two BOPE policemen (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais - Rio de Janeiro military police squads for special actions), André Batista and Rodrigo Pimentel, together with sociologist & anthropologist Luiz Eduardo Soares, which provided a semi-fictional account of the daily routine of the BOPE as well as some historical events, based on the experiences of the two BOPE policemen. The book was controversial at the time of release, in its description of the BOPE as a "killing machine", as well as the detailed allegation of an aborted assassination attempt on then left-wing governor of Rio de Janeiro,Leonel Brizola, and reportedly resulted in Batista being reprimanded and censured by the Military Police. The writing contained some discrepancies, however Soares did not retract his novel.[6] The novel had a unique reception when it was translated in 2010. There were many fans of the original novel and film who felt that the Portuguese-English translation was poor and did not follow the film and vice versa. Ultimately the novel (before translation) was more like the film than the novel in English.[citation needed]
In August 2007, prior to the movie's release to theaters, a preliminary cut of the film was leaked and made available for download on the Internet. The cut, which included Englishtitle cards but no subtitles, was leaked from the company responsible for subtitling the film, resulting in one person being fired and a criminal investigation. It was estimated that about 11.5 million people had seen the leaked version of the movie in 2007.[7]
Tropa de Elite became one of the most popular Brazilian movies in history. According to Datafolha, 77% ofSão Paulo residents knew about the movie. Theword of mouth was also important for the disclosure of the film, with 80% of the people rating the movie as "excellent" or "good", according to the same poll.[8]The movie was released in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo on October 5, 2007 (with the intention of being considered by theMinistry of Culture to compete as the Brazilian entry for theBest Foreign Language FilmOscar). It was released nationwide on October 12, 2007. By January 2008, 2.5 million people had seen it in theaters.[9] In Rio and São Paulo, with no promotion other than billboards, 180,000 people saw the movie during its opening weekend.[8][10]
The movie was also the cover issue for the two Brazil's most important weekly magazines,Veja andÉpoca. In the beginning of 2008 it was confirmed thatRede Globo would produce a TV series based on the movie.[11] In 2011Rockstar Games recommendedElite Squad to fans of its video gameMax Payne 3,[12] which is set in Brazil and depicts battles between special police units and favela gangs.
Outside Brazil reviews of the film were initially mixed, but after time the film was received more positively.Elite Squad has an approval rating of 51% onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, based on 35 reviews, and an average rating of 5.2/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Brutal, action-heavy Brazilian cop film with a pointless voiceover. Lacks flair, overdoes the violence and is never quite sure where its morals lie".[13]Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 33 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[14] The film won theGolden Bear at the 2008Berlin Film Festival.
When the first version of the film leaked, it caused a major controversy for its portrayal of Captain Nascimento's unpunishedpolice brutality inslums (favelas); some saw it asglamourizingpolice violence. After its exhibition inBerlin Film Festival, critic Jay Weissberg, in aVariety article, called the movie "a one-note celebration of violence-for-good that plays like a recruitment film forfascist thugs".[15] Michel Misse, a researcher of urban violence in theFederal University of Rio de Janeiro, in an article byCarta Capital, tried to explain why some people cheered at Captain Nascimento's actions: "as the judiciary system cannot keep up with the demand for punishment, some may thinkcivil rights leads to unpunishment. And then, they want illegal solutions. That's why Captain Nascimento is called".[16]
On February 16, 2008,Elite Squad won the Best Movie award of theBerlin International Film Festival, theGolden Bear.[17]
The soundtrack of the film was a collection of popular hits, but even the soundtrack would not escape controversy as the Brazilian authorities demanded the removal of MC Leonardo's "Rap das Armas" from the film, because of alleged promotion of violence like use of illegal arms and drugs. The filmmakers complied two weeks after the official release.
A sequel, namedTropa de Elite 2: O Inimigo Agora É Outro, was released in Brazil on October 8, 2010, and in the U.S. on November 11, 2011.
