City of God

A film that moves faster than it should. There’s three hours of plot packed into these two hours, plot that needs more clearly defined, interesting characters built off of fewer rote tropes to carry itself well, and the ensuing film is one that is easier to admire than get invested in. I can’t call it boring, though, and the frequently striking direction almost (almost!) makes up for the lack of interesting characters in a film defined by its characters. Its better elements arguably make it worth a single viewing, but I struggle to justify giving it more attention than that.

5