Released in 2007, the first Elite Squad turned out to be one of the most successful films to come out of Brazil in the past decade, gaining international acclaim by winning the Golden Bear award while stirring a long debate in its country of origin regarding police brutality and the battle against crime. The controversy surrounding the film led to a political dispute between conservatives, who saw in Captain Nascimento’s no-nonsense Dirty Harry tactics an efficient solution against the drug trade; and liberal groups, who believed the film endorsed torture and execution by portraying the questionable actions of the military police unit BOPE as fearless and heroic.
José Padilha now returns with Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within. Breaking a 34-year box office record in Brazil (held until then by Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands) and taking place 13 years after the first film, the plot continues Captain Nascimento’s heroic battle against “the system,” as he himself so often puts it. The second installment in the series is noticeably trying to redeem itself from past criticism, and it does so primarily with the inclusion of a new character, Diogo Fraga, a human rights activist, university teacher, awesome stepfather, and all-around nice guy. Fraga, who Nascimento mockingly nicknames Che Guevara, plays a central role in being a counterpoint to Nascimento’s ferocious, conservative, and militarized ideals. In the end, their battle is the same — for a better world and social justice — yet differ in their methods and ideologies. The audience can find something to identify with in both men, and the fact that they must at one point unite forces to battle a corrupt system only further underlines their incorruptibility and heroic conduct.
Due to public and media pressure, Captain Nascimento — after a disastrous and slaughterous attempt in controlling a prison rebellion — is fired from his position as head of the elite military police division BOPE while, at the same time, promoted to the position of sub secretary of security for the state of Rio de Janeiro. Despite being initially frustrated with his new job, he soon finds this to be an opportunity to continue his fight for his ideals of social justice from a larger scale. This is where Elite Squad 2 works best. While the first film focused on a war between police and drug dealers (as well as BOPE’s internal struggle against police corruption), this film suggests that there are more complex layers behind Brazil’s social problems and violence. Besides having to deal with the increase of police militias — organized police groups acting outside the law in a mafia scheme to take over the favelas from the drug barons and profit from an extortion scheme — Nascimento finds himself amid an endless web of corruption that reaches all the way up to the state governor.
Braulio Mantovani, the screenwriter behind both Elite Squad films (as well as the renowned City of God), skillfully manages to develop multiple story arcs and tie them in with the overall argument and plot. The inclusion of more characters and multiple storylines, however, does not always further the complexity. Nascimento is once again the narrator, a position which inevitably places him as the main character and central hero, even if this time around the hero is learning from his past mistakes. By having evil come from all sides, be it from the aptly named militia leader Major Rocha (a.k.a. The Russian who looks and sounds like a comic book villain) or from high political ranks in congress, Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within — as the title already suggests — argues that violence is not caused solely by the drug trade in the favelas (therefore, an all-out war against them, as the first film would claim, is not a solution), yet risks falling into the trap of advocating the hopelessness behind any political action.
While Elite Squad 2 is far from being The Wire (or even its poorer cousin, The Shield), and in spite of some absurd plot developments (Nascimento’s former wife marrying his main political opposition, the human rights activist Fraga) and a rather rushed ending, the film is a solid, tense political-action-thriller that mostly succeeds in redeeming itself from the simplistic narrative and totalitarian undertones existent in its predecessor.
