Film

City of Men

Matthew Scott Hunter

For the uninitiated, City of Men will serve as a fascinating introduction into the world of Brazilian gang subculture. But for those who are already familiar with the City of Men TV series (which inspired this film) or the City of God film (which inspired that TV series), the gritty, steep slums of Rio’s hillside will seem like old stomping grounds, and the events that take place there will be intermittently entertaining at best.

At its heart, City of Men is an urban coming-of-age tale. The gang violence eventually adds some much-needed urgency to the narrative, but for a long time seems curiously detached from the story of two childhood friends, Wallace (Silva) and Ace (Cunha), who grapple with their impending manhood, having never had any healthy male role models in their lives. Wallace, whose pop was gunned down years ago, deals with the sudden responsibilities of being an 18-year-old father himself. And Ace, on the eve of his 18th birthday, embarks on a quest to discover whatever happened to his own deadbeat dad.

In the meantime, a gang war is brewing, thanks to an overlooked underling becoming progressively irked by his gang leader. Neither Ace nor Wallace belongs to this gang, but due to confusing plot points that only gradually become clear, they wind up becoming unnecessary targets of senseless violence. Adding to their extreme angst is the discovery of Wallace’s father, who, it turns out, has spent the last 15 years in prison. He carries a secret just as old as his incarceration, which casts a somewhat exaggerated strain on the friendship of the two teenagers.

What’s best about the film is the vivid and alien world it creates. The ghetto of Rio de Janeiro is like no other, with sprawling, claustrophobic alleyways and rusty homes stacked one on top of the other. The gang war literally plays out like a game of King of the Hill with machine guns, and the way the innocent civilians react to the carnage seems at once both strange and believable.

As for the story, it all boils down to an all-too-familiar yarn about kids being forced to grow up too fast in a harsh world. They’re vulnerable enough to earn our sympathies, and there are plenty of slice-of-poverty-life moments that range from sad to amusing, but it’s all stuff we’ve seen before. Just never in Rio.

City of Men

** 1/2

Douglas Silva, Darlan Cunha, Jonathan Haagensen

Directed by Paulo Morelli

Rated R

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