In Brazil, the Elite Squad are those who police the police. Ostensibly an anti-corruption unit, they dress in black, their logo a skull pierced by both a knife and a gun barrel. Elite Squad is narrated by the pessimistic Captain Nascimento, who is searching for a successor every bit as hardnosed and cold-hearted as himself after impending fatherhood prompts new plans for early retirement. The two candidates, Neto and Matias, begin as idealists, the former as gungho as the latter is level-headed and self-improving. An uncompromising training regime and the realities of the streets soon chisel these rookies into cynical automatons designed only to kill and torture. The operation they inherit - to clean up the slum next to the local cardinal’s home before the Pope arrives - is unpopular from the start because the predictability of the routine nightly raids only magnifies the danger, but Neto especially seems to thrive on the peril.

Country: Bra    Genre: Drama    Released: 2007   
Rating: 18    Format: (WS)