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Controversial winner of the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival, this intense Brazilian crime drama revolves around Operation Holiness, the 1997 effort of Rio de Janeiro’s cult-like police military unit, BOPE, to clear out the heavily-armed drug gangs in the neighbouring favelas prior to the Pope's visit. That BOPE (the title’s elite squad) kills and tortures with scary proficiency is common knowledge in Rio; what comes as a real surprise is that the filmmaker should embrace and unleash his own violence in the film, instead of providing a much-needed commentary on the brutality taking place.

Deeply rooting itself in the social climate of corruption and setting the story at one of the city’s key historical moments, the film shuns any engagement with the issues (such as social inequality) it alludes to. In fact, despite (or because of) its technical splendour, Elite Squad comes dangerously close to becoming fascist propaganda. While filtering the action through the omnipresent but clearly distorted perspective of BOPE’s torturer/captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura), the film’s over-simplistic political views are rounded up with its one-dimensional portrayal of corrupt cops and junkie NGO members.

The result is more of a shoot ’em up than a tale with any critical substance, and Elite Squad is about as insightful and intellectual in its critique on Rio’s corruption and drug problems as Wanted is on the subject of capitalism.

Edmund Lee

Dir José Padilha, Category IIB, 115 mins, Special screenings on Sun 10 & Tue 12; opens Thu 14