Salles and Thomas have done a fine job trying to show that not all Brazilian poor youth become criminals, like the more sensationalizing Brazilian films do.

| Mar 5, 2021

Energetic yet thoughtful, intelligent and provocative, [Walter] Salles and his co-director Daniela Thomas provide another mesmerising snapshot of Brazil as the beating heart of modern South America.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 4, 2019

Walter Salles' humanistic approach is evident in this film, which offers a poignant look of how Brazil has changed over the past decade.

| Original Score: B | Aug 19, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 14, 2010

click for full review

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 14, 2009

This story of four brothers in São Paulo has a lively neorealist vibe that's utterly involving. And the characters are so vividly drawn by the filmmakers and cast that their mixture of hope and hopelessness really gets under our skin.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 19, 2008

It is as authentic as Salles and Thomas can make it even if it sometimes seems that, apart from the football angle, we have seen it all before. But if you haven't, then it's a real eye-opener.

Full Review | Sep 19, 2008

A game of good, solid passes that emotionally fail to hit the back of the net.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 19, 2008

The curse of modern Brazilian cinema, it increasingly seems, is that every film reminds us of City of God while none measures up to it.

| Sep 19, 2008

At the end of the day there just isn't enough Brazilian flair to support a drawn-out encounter.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 19, 2008

When a film strives this hard to be non-controversial and fashionably non-judgmental, it takes a lot of the sting out of its social comment. It just ends up as defeatist, liberal hand-wringing.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 19, 2008

Pleasingly, there are no cosy resolutions here; it's up to the viewer to decide each character's fate. Want a happy ending? Work for it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 19, 2008

Where most pictures about families end with huggy closure, this one ends in splinters, in pain, and with five different kinds of sudden, desperate hope.

| Sep 19, 2008

Heartfelt, well acted and confidently shot. But it is frustrating, because of a creeping reliance on favela-drama mannerisms and a culpable failure to think up an ending.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 19, 2008

Ultimately, there is an optimism to the film, albeit one that is tempered by the poignancy of lives shadowed by São Paulo's harsh indifference.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 19, 2008

A moving tale of working-class travails in modern Brazil that puts the carnage of City Of God and its ilk in sharp relief.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 19, 2008

Salles and Thomas's movie contains some extraordinary moments and its fine editing injects a dynamic cross-cutting energy.

| Original Score: 4/6 | Sep 19, 2008

Expertly crafted, you leave the cinema with São Paulo's dirt under your fingernails.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 19, 2008

Brazil-based drama directed by Walter Salles that went down well at Cannes this year. Of course, women hardly exist in this macho world.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 18, 2008

Salles and Thomas tritely conflate evangelism, soccer and crime as hollow alternatives for the characters, who end up reduced to static sacrificial lambs just so the filmmakers can state, restate and underline their suffering-poor points.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2008