Elite Squad: The Enemy Within Blu-ray Review
Trouble in Paradise.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, February 12, 2012
The favelas (or slums) of Rio de Janeiro cling to the hillsides surrounding the glittering metropolis and stare down on the
bright, shining cityscape and gleaming beaches like some jealous stepchild envying its more legitimate, better heeled
sibling. The favelas probably never really entered the world consciousness until Marcel Camus' iconic
Black
Orpheus became an international sensation in the late fifties (and, incidentally, introduced the world to the Bossa
Nova). The military dictatorship that swept into power in Brazil in the sixties may have successfully squelched further
notice of the favelas, and Brazil was often thought of in those days as a sort of almost mystical paradise, at least when
seen from afar. Those who actually visited Rio may have been shocked by the huge disparities in class evident as soon
as they ventured outside of the downtown core. But the favelas have increasingly played at least a part in several
notable efforts, whether literary or cinematic, over the past several years, including such sensational fare as Fernando
Meirelles'
City of God. Another film which plied somewhat the same territory as
City of God was the
spectacularly successful
The Elite Squad from 2007, a film which won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film
Festival. Director and co-writer Jose Padilha's somewhat disturbing thesis in
The Elite Squad was that the drug
trade had become so endemic to the favelas, and had the implicit support of the police force itself, that only a major
"new world order," perhaps akin to Fascism, could rescue Brazil.
The Elite Squad: The Enemy Within doesn't
exactly make a much cheerier case for the prospects for either politically expedient ends or for the ability of police to
escape the temptations of corruption to effectively handle an out of control criminal element.
It's probably no mere coincidence that Padilha ports over a real life surname from his highly regarded documentary
debut
Bus 174 to both of his
Elite Squad films.
Bus 174 recounts the real life horror of a young
man named Nascimento who took a bus full of passengers hostage in Rio in 2002. Nascimento in that film stood as a
fitting symbol for the almost pawn-like life so many denizens of the favelas find themselves inextricably ensconced in.
In
The Elite Squad, the chief character (and not so incidentally, also the narrator) is a Special Police Operations
Battalion (BOPE in Portuguese) Captain named Roberto Nascimento (Wagner Moura).
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy
Within starts with a blistering sequence, narrated by Nascimento, where the policeman recounts how he put a lot of
bad guys in jail, exposed a bunch of corrupt cops, and refused to toe the party line, all making him the object of scorn,
derision and, in a horrifying scene, a hail of bullets. The film then backtracks four years to reveal what has gone on in
the wake of the first
Elite Squad film.
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within posits a world of moral turpitude where even well meaning people are sucked
into a life of questionable ethics and ambivalent motivations. Nascimento is shown to be one of the few outright "good
guys" in Rio, a man uncompromising and uncompromised. A prison hostage crisis plays out in the early scenes of the
film which soon involves a well meaning though perhaps naïve history professor named Fraga (Irandhir Santos), a left
leaning political activist who believes, rightly or wrongly, that a little empathy and understanding can go a long way to
ameliorating both the crime situation in Rio as well as this particular hostage crisis. Fraga's participation in trying to
defuse the crisis brings him into direct confrontation with Nascimento, who basically wants to blast to smithereens all of
the hostage takers, all of them drug lords or operatives who are still plying their trade even while locked up in a
maximum security prison.
The outcome of that hostage crisis sets both men's careers on completely unexpected paths. Nascimento, initially
decried for having caused a bloodbath, soon becomes a public hero, and Fraga, who appeals to the younger, more
liberal crowd, soon finds himself a State Representative. Both men seem only too aware they're swimming with sharks,
though neither really has the wherewithal to effectively deal with the situation on his own. As the two parallel stories
play out, a number of other interrelated subplots are explored, including the complicity of the police with the drug
dealers of the favela and a right wing television host who is whipping up public foment for his own nefarious ends.
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within is not an especially easy film to stomach, being so rife with moral squalor as it
is. Nascimento and Fraga are both working for good, but are at loggerheads with each other, until the film's climactic
showdown, where Nascimento's courage momentarily seems like it will set things right, at long last. But in a system
where the deck is stacked so completely against change, Padilha makes it frighteningly clear that any
real
transformation is probably going to take generations. The film offers some incredibly disturbing violence, on both the
part of the police and the drug dealers, but what is ultimately the most disturbing is how "normal" these events seem
to everyone.
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within is, if anything, even more dour and depressing than
The Elite Squad. Rio's
crime problem has become the stuff of legend (and the interesting thing is, if you talk to native Brazilians, they'll tell you
Rio's problems pale in comparison to some of the other metropolises in the country, especially Sao Paolo).
Elite Squad
2: The
Enemy Within casts a disturbing look on how certain political elements in consort with the police and the very profitable
drug trade work in tandem to keep a ruling class of sorts in power, while scores of pawns are left to rot in the favelas.
Padilha stages the film magnificently, and Moura and Santos both deliver energetic and natural performances. With the
spotlight shining on these problems with films like
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within (which has become one of the
all time blockbusters in Brazilian film history), maybe things
can finally start to change for the better. But Padilha
himself would probably be the first to say, "Don't hold your breath." This Blu-ray offers superior video and audio and an
excellent in-depth featurette, and it comes
Highly recommended.
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