Few films that come out nowadays go the distance to include every major aspect of a great film. Not going to go into much detail regarding characters/plot. Everyone else will cover that in their reviews.

Plot
Many directors and screenwriters have tried to create a gang violence film depicting the lifestyles of youths engaged in these gangs. None of these films light a match to the realism portrayed in this film. Perhaps none of them have tried or meant to try. What few of them fail to depict is the difficulty of youth in being able to escape their fate as slum rats. As they are born into gangs, they fail in trying to escape it. Those that manage to escape it, never really escape. It’s the vicious cycle of the rich becoming richer, and the poor becoming poorer. This film portrays it amazingly as we see the children joining these gangs becoming younger and younger.

Mise-en-Scene…
As much of the film takes place in the 70s, the crew does an amazing job of transporting you there. Costumes, lighting, backdrop (all shot on location). I truly felt like I was watching a film made in the 70s. To truly get a feel for things, many of the actors spent much of their time in the slums of Rio De Janeiro to get a real feel for how these people lived. Some of the cast, to my understanding, even grew up there. A thorough amount of research went into replicating the detail of what we see.

Direction…
My favorite aspect of this film. There are many scenes that stand out. I will mention two. The scene where L’il Ze takes over the drug business. It’s shot from about 4 different angles and each are edited into the film. The scene at the rave with Bene (won’t say anymore). The film gets five stars for these two scenes alone. Other scenes to look out for are the final scene with L’il Ze and one of the more powerful scenes with the two very young children.

City of God is truly one of the best films ever made.