TROPA DE ELITE 2 (ELITE SQUAD 2 – THE ENEMY WITHIN)

Brazil, 2010, 116 minutes, Colour.
Wagner Moura, Irandhir Santos, Andre Ramiro.
Directed by Jose Padilha.

Elite Squad was a surprise world success after winning the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2008. It was a huge success in Brazil. The Brazilian film industry had a succession of films about the favelas, crime, drugs, protection, police and government corruption. Some films, like City of God and City of Men looked especially at the young men attracted to this way of life and violent achievement. Lower City looked at the underside of the metropolis. Carandiru took its audiences into the squalor of the crowded prisons.

Elite Squad was focused on the police, on a special hit squad and the battles in the streets. This sequel continues the story of Roberto Nascimento (Wagner Moura), the head of the elite squad. And, the film made more at the Brazilian box-office in 2010 than Avatar.
This sequel is easier to follow with characters more familiar or more clearly defined.

The issues are a bit more ambiguous, raising questions. Are the right-wing (even Fascist) attitudes, speeches and actions of the squad repellent even if they clear the neighbourhoods of drugs? Are the attitudes, speeches and actions of the liberals highlighting human rights sometimes self-serving (for political advantage)? We see all sides here.

There is also human and family drama – Nascimento’s ex-wife has married a rights’ activist, Frago, who is elected to Parliament and campaigns hard for rights. Nacimento spends four years after violently quelling a prison riot at a desk job, cleaning up the city but failing to realise that, as the dealers were ousted, corrupt police demanding protection payment, have taken over.

With a dramatic finale, the film stirs feelings about crime and police – and is open to further sequels.

1. The film as a sequel? Presupposing the original, Rio, crime, the favelas, the police, corruption, the elite squad, political implications, justice?

2. Rio de Janeiro as the city, beauty, ordinary, the favelas, poverty, drugs, the neighbourhoods? The police, the stations, arms? The prison? Government offices and parliaments, the world of television?

3. The action sequences, the raids, the prison riots, the confrontations?

4. The impact for a Brazilian audience, the huge box-office? World audience? Universal themes?

5. Nascimento’s story, the narrative, at the hospital, the squads ready for him, trapping him in his car, the attack, the shooting? His comments about his awareness of what he was doing at his death? The reprise of this sequence at the end, his escape?

6. The situation of the squad, Nascimento in charge, leading, his experience, reliance on Mathias? (**IMDB: MATIAS)

7. The issues of civil rights, Fraga and his speeches? Seeing Nascimento as a fascist? Rousing up his audiences, their response, left-wing liberal attitudes, his speech being intercut with the prison riot?

8. The prison riot, the corrupt police letting the gangs out, the gangs and their leadership, the killings? Fraga and his intervention, wanting to parley, taken hostage? Mathias and his shooting the leader? The results, responsibility?

9. Nascimento and his job, at a desk, four years administering order, getting rid of the drug dealers, cleaning out the neighbourhoods, the people and their response? His admitting his errors? The police coming in, Rocher and the demands for protection, his killing people at random, his lieutenants, the new squad? The money demands, the luxury yachts, the parties, exercise of power? Yet open to blackmail by subordinates?

10. The governor and his role, the issue of re-election, the popular appeal, the street parties and speeches, Guaracy and corruption, planning? The fat TV personality, his performance, his challenge to authorities, his comic touches, right-wing attitudes, becoming a legislator? The plan of the three, printing the posters, the importance of the raid on the police station, stealing the police arms, pretending that it was the drug dealers? Seconding Mathias to the squad? The success, Mathias and his determination to pursue the truth, torturing the drug dealer? His being killed?

11. Nascimento and his grief for Mathias’s death? Their interactions? Nascimento’s life, devoted to his work, meeting with his ex-wife and discussing matters with her, his love for his son, yet the alienation? His wife married to Fraga? The son and his seeing his father on television, the questions about violence, the martial arts encounter, the son not wanting to be violent? Later, the father determined to bond with his son, the martial arts episode?

12. The discovery of the corruption, Nascimento’s assistant, the tapings, the tapping of the phones? Yet the governor’s man, the orders? Counter-orders? The journalist, her ambition, going to her editor, his wanting information and evidence, the search of the house, the phone being tapped, her report to Fraga? Her being caught, murdered?

13. Nascimento and the ambush, the attack on his family car, his son being shot, in hospital? Nascimento’s decision to expose the group? His going to the parliament, his being interrogated, the TV man and the expose, the parliamentary reactions for and against?

14. The consequences, the range of killings, the end of an era, the arrests?

15. The effect of this kind of portrait of rough justice in a South American city? Its relevance to justice throughout the world?