How this movie didn't make it to the Oscars is a mystery...

This movie simply achieved what any other movie about politics, corruption and drugs in Brazil never achieved. It explains how all the system works in an unbiased way (ok, maybe BOPE is portrayed a bit as "the good guys", but it doesn't ruin the movie at all), without the interference from the media or government or anything else.

Spectacular acting from Wagner Moura and the whole cast. Truths that were hidden/omitted for so long revealed to the audience.

The movie is not a fairy tale, with policemen being good and bandits being bad: in the end, all bad guys get arrested and the country lives in perfect harmony. No, it's a true story, it really reveals how people are and how things are done. Complaining about the violence? That's how things work, it is too hipocritical of people to say "oh, but things are not like that". Yes, they are like that, and the movie would have lost a lot of its meaning without it.

And the characters are real. There is no perfect hero, a person without doubt, without problems, that saves everyone and everything and sticks with a hot girl in the end. No, we have Capitão Nascimento, a very experient police man that struggles with his family problems, with what his wife thinks of him, with the corruption around him and with his own doubts towards his actions. No, we don't have the perfect Hollywood hero, we have real people with real problems in a really complex system. Never has a movie so richfully portrayed the situation in Brazil (you could also take some things about other latin american countries) and also how corruption works.

Most of all, it sends an important message to the whole world: the problem is not only limited to the slums and to the poor countries, every person that buys drugs is helping finance the crimes. The scene with the "student", in the slum, shows that very clearly: the one to blame is the one who uses drugs, who finances a whole local and international system. It is the same thing about other countries: in USA, a lot of artists/rich people consume the drugs, and they are responsible, too, for financing all the corruption and system.

That message was never given out to the audience in other movies. In most films, the drug dealers are the bad guys responsible for every problem, and that's it, and that is just a simplistic way to see the problem. Tropa de Elite shows what is buried really deep, what people usually don't think.

So, I really have a hard time to understand why this movie was not nominated to the Oscars (which makes me believe more and more that there are more people behind the choice of the movies, not only the judges).

Here in Brazil, we usually criticize hard movies made here, because they are just too silly or poorly made, without any care for the result, directors only think about the money. Tropa de Elite changed my mind completely. I am proud to say that it was made here.