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Rating: "The System was changing. It was evolving. Before, politicians used the System to make money. Now, they depended on the System... to get elected."
Tropa de Elite was a great success with audiences at home, and so it was decided to make a sequel, once again directed by José Padilha.
The slight fear that it might be a mere commercial operation is immediately dispelled: we are faced with a worthy follow-up much more spontaneous than I expected. From the '90s, where the first film was set, to today in the city of Rio De Janeiro, a lot of water has passed under the bridge, and many things have changed, as the subtitle "the enemy is now someone else" rightly suggests. The story is based on fictional events, but similarities with real events are not lacking, such as the prison riot at the beginning.
The BOPE finds itself discredited by human rights organizations and the left-wing press. Nascimento and his wife are divorced: he has returned to the BOPE as a colonel while she is with Fraga, a human rights activist who considers the BOPE people a bunch of murderous fascists. He will manage to disgrace Nascimento, who will be removed from his position only to end up in intelligence, where he will clash with the interests of unscrupulous politicians.
"Tropa De Elite 2" lashes out aggressively against the political system and media obstructionism. It makes Beto Nascimento a champion of justice with indissoluble principles, and through his voice condemns the entire ruling class of the state, which like in Italy, is full of deputies with stained criminal records.
The fight against drug traffickers is put aside and instead, we are shown how in areas cleaned up from criminal gangs, it happens that the police take their place, transforming into a kind of mafia supporting some disgusting political animal. In this sequel, the BOPE plays a minor role, and the story focuses more on the events that lead corrupt, infamous cops to take power in the favelas.
Wagner Moura has once again performed excellently, maintaining the character's charisma. From an artistic point of view, "Tropa de Elite 2" is less inspired than the first and lacks particularly memorable scenes and sequences. In compensation, Nascimento's narrating voice always remains incisive, direct, and free of half-measures, also taking on a strong tone of social denunciation dense with significant phrases.
"The system has no central organization or board of directors. The system is an impersonal mechanism, a set of disordered interests."
The optimistic ending in a certain sense aims to give hope that things can change in the future and that the truth can rise above the shouting of the decaying politicians who always get away because in Brazil it is almost impossible to convict the authorities.
It's a pity that this film has not yet been distributed in Italy.
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