"Deadly Cruelty" is inspired by the real story of a mentally-ill old man who was lynched by a mob in Rio de Janeiro in 1970 after he makes
some advances towards a married woman, among other nuisances of his with all of the locals.
Here, he is played by the highly memorable Joffre Soares,
a senior citizen living in the countryside of Rio after leaving his family behind in Northeast (it's never explained what happened exactly with his
wife and kids) and such isolation of body and mind causes him to repeatedly curse and attack everyone, make some advances on a deeply religious woman (Ilva
Niño) who lives with her two young daughters and without a husband, refusing any contact with men. Hardly ever sober, sometimes he demonstrates to be
a quite relatable lonely character who craves for some intimacy and feels bad for reaching an old age where he can't deal with himself living alone.
But what attracts the hatred of the whole community is when he spies a scandalous married woman (Marieta Severo) who reports his obscene act to the crowd
rather than calling for the authorities.
Right from the start we know what happened to him later on after dealing with the angry mob, when a chief of police questions all the present
people. The movie is a prolongued flashback where we follow countless characters from the town and their attitudes towards the old man and their
different reactions as the dramatic event is slowly happening. Who's guilty and who's not? Who managed to intervene against the attack and who turned
their eyes away from the situation?
It's a harsh yet realistic view of society when a group is united to commit some horrific act based on a fake news - pay attention to the sequence
and see how much of that incident of spying actually happened and his intrusion knocking on the woman's door and judge for yourself if he actually
deserved a brutal fate. Mob mentality is a curious thing since it manages to attract to a cause people who don't even know the actual facts of a
situation, or are just there for the thrills of commiting violence against a person, and to those on the other side of the cause like the junkyard worker
(Antonio Pitanga), the need to defend the victim is important but he's practically alone with it, and it's quite frustrating to act upon the good cause.
Besides the huge denounce against lynchings and the actions of an angry mob, the movie works for its progress of events where the palpable
tension and the details from each character (plus the old man's ramblings) are all thrilling to see, though it's not much a spectacular film on the
topic as the great western "The Ox-Bow Incident" which was a gripping, intense and powerfully dramatic experience. But "Deadly Cruelty" certainly makes
a good cause on the issue and it makes you reflect about how people behave and act when confronted with the bad actions of one person.
Though a quite common action in Brazil in certain areas, the thematic could be explored in another film if someone dares to the tell the story
of the Matupá lynching where three bandits were beaten and set on fire when the police force couldn't get them own of town, it was a huge story back
in the early 1990's since it was filmed on tape by the perpetrators - there were a couple of convictions decades later. That's a real cruel story that
needed a least a documentary about it. While it doesn't happen, the closest we get is this film, a quite commendable experience. 8/10.
