MOVIE REVIEW
Elite Squad (2007)
David John Prichard/The Weinstein Company
The Brazilian crime drama “Elite Squad” – winner of the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival – has generated plenty of controversy thanks to its supposed fascist leanings. While it does in some fashion celebrate the brutal, repressive tactics of BOPE – Rio de Janeiro’s elite police squad – José Padilha’s work just as openly questions the personal and psychological destruction brought on by membership in the unit. The problem with the movie is not its ideology, but the fact that it never breaks free from the most clichéd mold in Brazilian cinema: a story focused on cops, guns, drug runners and Rio’s favelas.