A story about gangs and drugs in the slums of Rio… from the mid 1960s through mid 1980s, I think. The movie was powerful at times, and bloody all the way through. While it was worth seeing just for the portrait it portrayed. I was left feeling that it missed an opportunity to really get into the feelings and motivations of some of the characters – the main character in particular. He’s just presented as a ho-hum guy in the middle of it all. I suppose there probably are a lot of people like that, but why make a movie about ho-hum people with little to say? In the end, the only message I got was that violence & drugs are a dead end, and that at least gangs bring some sense of order to the chaos… for a short time. The movie was very loosely-based on some real characters…