City Of God

A violent, thoroughly electrifying vision of Rio during the volatile 1970s, and possibly the first great crime film of the 21st century. There's nothing particularly heavenly about the "City of God," a housing development thrown up on Rio's outskirts during the 1960s to help alleviate the homeless overflow from the city's teeming slums. This sprawling suburb of clay-colored matchbox houses, which lacks running water, electricity and paved roads, and is overrun by criminal gangs and an equally dangerous police force, is more like a lawless frontier town in the Old West. Young Rocket (Luis Otavio) dreams of one day escaping, but few ever make it out, and his older brot...