For many years, the slums (called favelas in Brazil) of Rio de Janeiro have been taken over by drug dealers
and gangs. There are constantly open-fire battles between the criminals and the police, and ordinary citizens face danger regularly. Because of this, the BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais, or Special Police Operations Battalion), a crack paramilitary force, was created to fight the gangs. In José Padilha's
Elite Squad (in Brazil called
Tropa de Elite ), Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura), the leader of a BOPE unit, is going to retire because of he is going to be a father and needs to pick his successor. The two candidates are André Matias (André Ramiro) and Neto Gouveia (Caio Junqueira), childhood friends that shared the same indignation towards police
corruption.
The film is very disturbing, as it shows all the police corruption in Rio de Janeiro and all the violence and battles that frequently happen in the favelas in Rio. However, the movie is extremely good, and it even won the best movie award of the Berlin International Film Festival, the Golden Bear, in February 16, 2008.