Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9308 in DVD
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Released on: 2008-07-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Portuguese
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 106 minutes

Album Description
Paulo Morelli's film is a pacy, bloody thriller that pays warm tribute to a diverse cross-section of American directors including Quentin Tarantino and Michael Bay. Bullets zing across the screen, heavy artillery is deployed at all times, and Morelli makes great use of the twisty favela streets during some frantic chase sequence. Silva and Cunha, who both had roles in CITY OF GOD, carry the picture with impressive ease, and while CITY OF MEN isn't an official sequel to Meirelles's lauded picture, it does serve as a neat continuation of that film's unshakable portrayal of the violence that has beset so many young lives in the slums of Rio de Janeiro.

Amazon.com
Action-packed and fueled by Brazilian funk, City of Men returns the makers of City of God to the scene of their first success. In this case, the search for family supersedes the search for identity--not that there isn't a correlation between the two. Though produced by Fernando Meirelles, Paulo Morelli's feature isn't a sequel, but a follow-up to the four-season series of the same name. While Meirelles's movie takes place in Rio de Janeiro's past, Morelli's transpires in the present (not counting flashbacks from the show). Days away from turning 18, boyhood friends Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha, a.k.a. Wallace (Darlan Cunha), grew up without fathers. Ace has a wife and child; Wallace has a steady girl. The duo gets along with the gang that rules their labyrinthine hillside neighborhood or favela, but hoodlum life holds little appeal. Ace struggles to raise his young son--his security guard father was murdered during a robbery--while Wallace tries to track down the dad he never knew. With Ace's assistance, Wallace solves the mystery of his genealogy, but at great cost to their friendship (and lives). Despite the South American pedigree, City of Men suggests the South Central of Boyz N the Hood more than City of God. It's not that Morelli's kinetic film looks like John Singleton's more classically composed enterprise, but that it deals with similar inner-city concerns. That said, Silva and Cunha are every bit as charismatic as Ice Cube and Cuba Gooding Jr.--if not more so. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

"It didnt look real"????
"It didnt look real"??? Have you been to a favela??? Have you even been to Rio de Janeiro or Brasil for that matter? Because by your comment it is very obvious that you haven't. This movie is relatively slower than City of God but this movie is portraying Rio currently instead of in the 70s (when City of God is set). The drug wars are still brutal but aren't year long ordeals. This movie is exceptional at showing modern day Rio and I very highly recommend it. Make sure to watch the TV show first!

Watch the TV Series First
I watched City of Men once before I had seen the 19-episode TV series of the same name (City of Men) and after I had watched the TV series and the movie is literally one hundred times more powerful and exciting if you have watched the show and understand the characters. If you have not watched the City of Men TV show, my recommendation is to buy that before you watch this movie and if you have watched the show, this is an amazing follow up to the series that wraps things up very nicely and is for all intents and purposes an excellent final 'episode'.

Don't buy this expecting a sequel to City of God because they are not in the same league as far as production value and entertainment are concerned. The pacing is much slower and there is certainly less action, but this movie assumes that you already know what happened in the sereies. There are a healthy dose of flashbacks that take place throughout, but these are more to remind the viewer of moments that took place throughout the show than they are to catch new viewers up to speed. In closing, I highly recommend City of Men the movie, but only after you have seen the TV show, otherwise it will still be an entertaining film, but it was made to be coupled with the series.

A great follow-up to the TV program
I had seen the 19-episode TV series on DVD, and I had been awaiting the movie since it was filmed in 2006.

I received the movie on DVD on July 1. I really liked the movie because it stayed true to the TV show ( mostly ) and also because it finally touched on a subject that many whom are familiar with the TV series had been wondering about: the estranged fathers of the boys.

There's not much I can say here without spoiling it. But rest assured that this movie ( preceded by watching the TV series ) is something that you will want to see.