City of God



"Run and you'll never escape. Fight and you'll never survive."

On the edge of Rio de Janeiro, in The Sixties, a housing colony is built to replace the favela shantytowns and house the many refugees of flooding. A bleak but not horrible place, its people live on the edge of society: the kids growing up there engage in petty crime that grows ever more severe as the years go on. By The Seventies, the children have become teenagers and the colony has become like the decaying shantytowns it was meant to replace.

Buscapé grows up alongside teenage gang members but limits his law-breaking to petty theft and smoking weed. He wants to be a photographer when he grows up, and to move far away from the ever-worsening Cidade de Deus. The kids who grow up in the crime-ridden Cidade de Deus turn to gangs, and the gangs turn to drugs to make money. As the biggest gangster, Zé Pequeno, declares war against the other street gangs in the slum, Buscapé can't help but get involved as violence explodes on every street. In the end, he realizes that he must leave as Cidade de Deus collapses completely and has become an all-out war zone.

The film City of God (Cidade de Deus) is based on a book by the same name by Paulo Lins (which in turn is based on some true events). After the film became popular and won awards, a TV series spin-off was made called City of Men.


 * Age Cut: Of the "cut to younger" kind.
 * All Girls Want Bad Boys: Subverted. Angélica *does* go for gangster Bené over nice guy Buscapé, but not because she wants a bad boy - as gangsters in the film go, Bené's a relatively benign one, and Angélica asks him to give up the gangster lifestyle soon after they've gotten together. The same is true of Cabeleira's (Shaggy) girlfriend in the opening section. Zé, meanwhile, is unable to get sex without paying for it or forcing himself on a woman, despite being as bad as bad boys get (and getting plenty of respect for it from other gangsters).
 * Anti-Villain: Mané Galinha (Knockout Ned), arguably to the point of scarcely being a villain at all.
 * Beauty Equals Goodness: Deconstructed. As Buscapé puts: Zé is ugly and Mané Galinha (Knockout Ned) is handsome. However, as the latter becomes more and more He Who Fights Monsters, the line between Good and Evil becomes a little blurred.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Black and Gray Morality: It's a deeply depressing movie, and even the sympathetic characters are morally problematic. Morality doesn't get much blacker than Zé Pequeno however.
 * Black Comedy: When it's not being deeply depressing, it can be a pretty funny movie.
 * Break the Cutie: Happens to Mané Galinha (Knockout Ned).
 * Chekhov's Gun: Zé
 * This trope is subverted in scenes surrounding Goose's gun. When we first see the gun in The Sixties, Goose is hiding it in a drawer and tells Rocket to never touch it. Later, in The Seventies, Rocket takes the gun with him during his "flirtation with crime"; however, the gun is never fired or even used.
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Mané Galinha (Knockout Ned) first appears as a very friendly guy who works on a bus and reveals through conversation that he was a former member of the Brazilian Special Operations Brigade, and ridiculously overqualified to kick the ass of anyone who tries to screw with him.  Buscapé does state that Mané's story will come later, but then he says that about everything in the film, so it still fits the trope.
 * Also
 * Children Are Innocent: Brutally averted all the way to hell. Lil' Zé (called Dadinho at the time) goes on a senseless killing spree in a whorehouse/motel when he is only 12 years old. At the very end of the film, Lil' Zé.
 * Child Soldiers: The subversion of the above trope leads to this, obviously.
 * Children Forced to Kill: Has an infamous example in which a ganglord forces one small child to kill his even younger friend after they steal from him.
 * Cluster F-Bomb: So much that (at least in Brazil) the most famous line is "Dadinho é o caralho, meu nome agora é Zé Pequeno, porra!" (translated as "The fuck I'm Dadinho! My fucking name is Zé Pequeno now!")
 * Crazy Jealous Guy: Lil' Ze
 * Cycle of Revenge
 * Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Subverted/deconstructed in the case of Zé Pequeno and his gang, who become (relatively) rich and respected via their lifestyle, but between trying to extend their power and fighting off would-be rivals don't have time to enjoy it. Averted in the case of Bené and Cabeleira (Shaggy), who realize the lifestyle is brutal and dangerous and try to get out as soon as they have a chance.
 * Dirty Cop: Instead of arresting Zé Pequeno at the end, the cops rob him of his jewelry and turn him loose again.
 * There are also scenes in the beginning where the police kills innocent bystanders by accident, then simply shrug and plant false evidence on them.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: The reason why Mané Galinha (Knockout Ned) becomes a Fallen Hero. Look above at the Complete Monster entry.
 * Enforced Method Acting: Somehow it falls on this. On the infamous Sadistic Choice scene, Meirelles, the director wasn't getting the appropriate acting from the crying child, so the pedopsychologist found out that the child's greatest fear was of having a toothache, and she told him to imagine that he has a toothache in the foot.
 * Except for two professional actresses (Angélica's actress was just starting and eventually played a major role in I Am Legend, for example), almost all of the actors were actual children from the favelas (Brazilian slums).
 * Everything's Better with Chickens: The chicken chased around in the film's opening even got in the poster.
 * Fallen Hero: Mané Galinha (Knockout Ned), to the point of becoming an antagonist.
 * Gang-Bangers: The street gangs in Cidade de Deus are of the drug-wealthy but definitely lower-class variety.
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: Lil' Zé and Benny in the first half of the movie.
 * Here We Go Again: The movie ends with the group of young street boys seen throughout the movie as they make a "death list" of the biggest drug dealers and forming their own gang.
 * He Who Fights Monsters: Mané Galinha (Knockout Ned)'s campaign of guerrilla justice against the street gang responsible for the rape and murder of his girlfriend slowly turns him into exactly the type of person he had been hunting.
 * Initiation Ceremony: Zé initiates some runners, but but one of them is shot in the foot and forced to kill another of his choice before they can do so.
 * In Medias Res: The story starts about fifteen minutes before the end of the movie, before the climatic scene unfolds you're told the who's who and what's what that take up most of the rest of the movie.
 * Ironic Echo: "What makes you think it's yours?"
 * Ironic Echo Cut
 * Ironic Nickname: The Tender Trio (Trio Ternura), what a good name for a gang!
 * Or Giant, the smallest of the children in the Runts.
 * Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: As above, Mané Galinha (Knockout Ned) originally insists on a Thou Shalt Not Kill rule during robberies, but after Carrot (Cenoura) saves his life by shooting a guard, the exception becomes the rule.
 * Justified Criminal: Almost everyone.
 * Karma Houdini: The corrupt cops.
 * Karmic Death:
 * Laser-Guided Karma: After spending his life clawing his way to the top, Zé dies with nothing; his gang's defeated, he's lost all his money, and he's gunned down by the very people he abused in a filthy alley with nothing. In short, he loses it all. Now THAT'S Karma.
 * Mob War
 * Morality Chain: Bené to Li'l Zé.
 * Montages: Many.
 * Non-Indicative Name: The City of God is a pretty terrible place, and certainly doesn't come across as holy.
 * Only Known by Their Nickname: Nearly all of the characters. We only hear Buscapé's official name at the end of the movie. This is Truth in Television; Brazil is very much a nickname society, and favelas even more so.
 * Pet the Dog: The only good thing about Li'l Zé is that he actually gives a rat's ass about his friend Bené. He gives Buscapé the camera because Bené would have wanted it. And he leaves Carrot (Cenoura) alone because he's friends with Bené. Doesn't make him any less of a monster.
 * Sadistic Choice: Have we already mentioned the scene where Zé meets the child gang for the first time?
 * Retirony: Bené is
 * Romantic False Lead: Tiago and Bené (to some degree).
 * Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Lil' Dice in the poster. His entire gang in this one.
 * Sex as Rite-Of-Passage: Buscapé
 * Subtitle Name Change: Many:
 * Buscapé (Firecracker) to Rocket
 * The main villain, José Eduardo:
 * Zé Pequeno ("Little José") to Lil' Zé
 * Dadinho ("Eddie") to Lil' Dice (which is also a direct translation)
 * Bené to Benny (direct translation)
 * Cenoura to Carrot (direct translation)
 * Mané Galinha ("Chicken Manny") to Knockout Ned (A Pragmatic Adaptation, since "chicken" means "coward" in English.)
 * Cabeleira ("Hairy") to Shaggy (also Pragmatic Adaptation, retaining the original sexual overtones)
 * Marreco ("Duck") to Goose
 * Alicate ("Pliers") to Clipper
 * Barbantinho ("Beardy") to Stringy
 * Filé-com-Fritas to Steak-With-Fries (direct translation)
 * Neguinho to Blacky (direct translation)
 * Tio Sam to Uncle Sam (direct translation)
 * Teens Are Monsters: Zé and his gang. Alone, he was responsible for at least hundreds of deaths.
 * Time Passes Montage: On the drug dealer's rapidly decaying apartment.
 * Throw It In: The praying before the gang war breaks out wasn't scripted, but the actors included it since the drug dealers usually do it in real life.
 * The final scene when the littlest child runs to go with the Runts (Caixa Baixa) and comes back to pick up his shoe was also unplanned.
 * Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Dadinho (Lil' Dice) is merely the most extreme example.
 * Villainous BSOD: Mané (Ned) experiences this when he encounters the child of a man he murdered in Little Ze's gang. Which makes his death kind of tragic.
 * What Measure Is a Mook?: Subverted, since the mook's son.
 * World Half Empty
 * Wretched Hive: Cidade de Deus itself.