Line #23 YMMV/TheEliteSquad


1	* AccidentalAesop: Political and social points aside, Nascimento in the first film is also a pretty accurate portrayal of anxiety disorders and how difficult to treat and damaging to one's life can they be. Considering he also proves incapable to confide about it to the police therapist, an additional lesson of the film could be "get to the therapist as soon as possible and ''speak up''".
2	* AdaptationDisplacement: Is it based on a book? (applies for both, as the book received a sequel in time for ''Tropa 2'')
3	* {{Anvilicious}}:
4	** The movie argues that sky high crime can only be curbed through proportionally combative police action. In case you might have not caught it, the last scene shows a criminal being executed on the spot as a police rite of passage, cue badass ending music.
5	** Yeah, we get it, social activists often have more sympathy for criminals than for the people who protects them from said criminals. Now, having Matias stop a protest to call them assholes like ten times is ''perhaps'' a bit too on the nose.
6	* AwardSnub: Fans of the first movie were shocked that it was passed over by the Ministry of Culture as the country's Best Foreign Picture submission (not that ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_My_Parents_Went_on_Vacation The Year My Parents Went on Vacation]]'' is bad - José Padilha himself admits it's a good movie, which entered the final shortlist, it just never reached ''The Elite Squad''-levels of popularity; although given ''Film/CityOfGod'' was passed over by the Academy, the Ministry had a reason to not put their bets on a gritty movie). The second one being the Brazilian entry and still not making the final shortlist was also an unpopular moment.
7	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The movie's ending theme, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF5byGFsQ2U Lado B Lado A]]" by O Rappa, is an epic reggae/rock piece with some Brazilian folk imagery in its lyrics.
8	-->''Eu sou guerreiro, sou trabalhador'' ("I'm a warrior, I'm working class")
9	-->''E todo dia, todo dia, vou encarar'' ("And all the day, all the day I will face it")
10	-->''Com fé em Deus e na minha batalha'' ("with faith in God and in my battle")
11	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Captain Nascimento has been described both as a hero/anti-hero cop relentless in his fight against crime and a fascist thug whose sole purpose is to exterminate lower-class drug dealers. A third and more interesting interpretation suggest that, rather than hero or villain, Nascimento is a victim. Given that he suffers panic crises while at leisure and that his personal life crumbles throughout the first movie, it seems that his training and his job at BOPE took a severe toll on his psychological wellbeing, making him yet another casualty of the War on Drugs.
12	* CompleteMonster: Major Rocha of the sequel ''The Enemy Within'' begins his reign of terror in Rio's slums by forming a militia and slaughtering anyone who won't give his men a cut of the profits. Any who resist the militia are executed, along with any witnesses. When Mathias, one of the CowboyCop heroes, is [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique getting info from a drug dealer]], Rocha murders the dealer- and then shoots Mathias in the back. When two journalists get too close to the truth, Rocha tortures them, kills one, then has the other raped and killed before burning the bodies. when the main AntiHero gets too close, Rocha tries to kill him as well. A brutal thug of a human being, Rocha eclipses anyone else in the films for his violence and corruption.
13	* EvenBetterSequel: For those who already liked the first, the second movie was this, particularly the impactful take regarding systemic corruption. Audiences agreed enough to make it the most attended Brazilian film ever.
14	* FountainOfMemes: Most of what Nascimento's lines, including "Pede pra sair!" ("say uncle!"), "Bota na conta do Papa" ("put it in the Pope's bill"), "Missão dada parceiro, é missão cumprida" ("A given mission, partner, is a finished mission"), and "Tira essa roupa preta, que você não merece usar! Você não é Caveira, você é muleque!" ("Take off the black suit, you're not worth it! You're not a Caveira, you're a brat!").
15	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Naturally, given its themes and message, the movie has been valued and revalued in countries where criminality rates and/or perception of police inefficiency have risen since its release.
16	* MemeticBadass: Nascimento received his own version of Website/ChuckNorrisFacts in Brazil.
17	* MemeticMutation:
18	** For one not said by Capt. Nascimento, "NotInTheFace, to not ruin the wake!"
19	** From the sequel, Fábio saying [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToJjIO6gjUw "Forget this shit, goddammit"]] ("esquece essa mierda aí, porra") eventually became a popular reaction image.
20	* MisaimedFandom:
21	** Captain Nascimento is written as a deeply flawed character, but many fans admire him, with some media reports of people applauding his actions when seeing the movie at cinemas. The scriptwriter, a 12 year veteran of BOPE, mentioned in an interview that even he was surprised at Nascimento's popularity.
22	** While the film tries to criticize the BOPE for police brutality, Brazilian audiences ironically began to admire the force even more after the film's release. Somewhat comprehensible considering that the criminal justice in Brazil is usually inefficient and/or crooked and cases of impunity are far from uncommon, so the whole brutality felt like a CatharsisFactor for several Brazilians.
23	* MoralEventHorizon:
24	** Baiano sure crosses it when he [[spoiler:burns a student alive]].
25	** In the sequel, it's hard to say where the militias cross the line into the unforgivable, since they already start very rotten. Maybe when they [[spoiler:kill Matias without warning or when they force a journalist who was documenting them to strip, rape her, kill her and burn her corpse.]]
26	* NightmareFuel: The violence in both movies takes horrifying proportions, made even worse by the fact such violence is actually a very accurate portrayal of Brazil's reality. But one scene in particular from the first movie takes the cake: [[spoiler: Rodrigues and Roberta's death. After Baiano learns a cop was brought to the vicitinity of his slums, he and his men go to Rodrigues' workplace where Rodrigues is shot in the leg and him and Roberta are captured by Baiano's men. Roberta is later executed with a bullet to the head while Rodrigues, still bleeding, is forced to watch his girlfriend die while stuffed in a stack of tires, inneffectually begging and screaming for his life as Baiano douses him in alcohol and sets him on fire.]]
27	* StrawmanHasAPoint: Fraga's undoubtedly a strawman, serving as opposition for Nascimento and BOPE's methods, but considering how [[PoliceBrutality brutal]] and reckless they can get, and the fact that the one time he's given a chance to try and solve a conflict peacefully, he was succeeding before being interrupted by Matias, its pretty hard to argue against him at that particular point.
28	* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: The second film was considered an improvement in most fields over the first (except maybe in memetic epicness). It even managed to win the foreign critics [[ValuesDissonance who felt the original film was "fascist"]].
29	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: In the movie there are only two kinds of police, fascist cops and corrupt cops. As a result, many viewers may find it difficult to root for anyone.
30	* ValuesDissonance: Brazilian critics loved it, whereas foreign critics not so much, with some calling it fascist despite the movie criticizing police brutality. It is pretty natural that perspectives on criminal justice will be rather different in countries where police forces generally have things under control, compared to countries like Brazil where violent crime (particularly homicide) rates reach heights that most North Americans (excluding Mexicans), Europeans (''including'' Russians) and Asians only have to see in their nightmares. For many Brazilian critics, there is even a chance that the movie's topic is ItsPersonal for them considering the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_intentional_homicide#2010s_by_rate_per_100.2C000 victimization levels]] in many of their cities.

Context YMMV / TheEliteSquad