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Cidade dos Homens|City of Men

A chilling gangland epic

By TOM MEEK | February 27, 2008

3.5 Stars

CIDADE DOS HOMENS: A chilling landscape far from the tony streets of the Back Bay.

Sharing a milieu and cast members with Fernando Meirelles’s much lauded Cidade de Deus|City of God (2002), Paulo Morelli’s equally kinetic gangland epic likewise draws on Shakespearean tragedy as rival gangs vie for control of the drug trade in the slums of Rio. Gang kingpin Midnight (Jonathan Haagensen) wields such great power, even the police defer to him. Not so his disgruntled sergeant-at-arms, Nefasto (Eduardo BR). Caught in the middle of the power struggle are childhood friends Ace (Douglas Silva) and Wallace (Darlan Cunha); neither knows who his father is and each has a tie to an opposing side in the blood feud. Beneath the gunfire, Morelli (who worked on the similarly titled Brazilian TV series with Fernando Meirelles as producer) captures the horror of drugs, poverty, and doomed lives, in particular the intergenerational turmoil of fathers and sons. It’s a chilling landscape far from the tony streets of the Back Bay. Portuguese | 110 Minutes | Kendall Square

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Topics: Reviews , Crime, Gang Violence, Fernando Meirelles

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