This movie has been critically acclaimed as an ultra-nationalist (or ufanist, in Brazilian terms) low budget Hollywood wannabe.
The truth is, the critics are right.
But, this doesn't make it necessarily a completely bad movie. Of course if you're going to see it you shouldn't be expecting a masterpiece, but it is a perfectly enjoyable Sunday afternoon movie.
On the bad side, the storyline is bland and most of the time the dialogs are pretty boring and not very believable, the action scenes looks like the kind of scenes you'd see in a soap opera, the waving Brazilian flag is all over the place even when it doesn't fit the story (but yes, the Brazilian government and military were sponsors) and they have an weird obsession with the city of Florianopolis, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the whole concept of the movie (but yes, the city was obviously one of the sponsors too).
On the good side of it, you can see cool action scenes featuring actual Brazilian Airforce fighters and bombers like the Embraer Super-Tucanos (where else could you see these in action?). The Brazilian army also does a good job with some realistic jungle war action.
The acting is poor. As a Brazilian I've seen all the main Brazilian characters in other roles and they are pretty good, but somehow in this movie they seem to be very robotic and they talk like written language or like some lame dubbing of an American movie all the time, using expressions that are never really used in real life. Thiago Lacerda is a great actor, but it just didn't seem like he was really into it. Joaquín Cosio would look convincing in a picture, but his acting falls short just like everyone else.
The picture and editing was OK, but in some of scenes it just didn't work. For example when the politician's car is raided by the drug dealers you can't really figure out what the hell is going on. It is too dark and the take looks like they were just cut and paste together in a random order. The soundtrack is also OK. In a few moments it feels somewhat out of place, but overall it delivers.
To sum up. It is worth watching. Keep your hopes very low like it did when I watched it and you can have an enjoyable session. If you like Brazilian action movies like City of God or Elite Squad you'll be very disappointed, but if you like the standard American third world action movies like Stallone's "The Expendables", you will probably enjoy this one.
