'City of God' was a visceral epic, a tale of the slummification of a Brazillian new suburb and the consequences of this story for the lives of those who lived there. 'City of Men' is a loose sort of follow up, with a different director, and it's a lesser film, without Fernando Meirelles' scintillating direction. More than anything else, the story suffers because its protagonists are so clearly innocents caught up in events beyond their control; while it's still an effective portrayal of the harshness of life in the favella, it lacks the sense of individual responsibility that is usually a necessary part of the most powerful drama. Which is not to say that it's a bad film, making good use of the dramatic setting of Rio de Janeiro, and conveying well not just the brutality, but also the fragility, of a life lived at the margins.
Review of City of Men
