This is one of those films which I know I should have seen a long, long time ago. It's not as though I haven't had my chances: the film was shown as part of the Borderlines Film Festival a couple of years ago, and I didn't go, and then I taped it off Film4 a few months ago and promptly taped over it without watching.
I think some part of me was afraid perhaps that it would be a worthy "situation" film, parading the terrible living conditions in the titular city for the viewing pleasure of an audience eager to shake their heads in disgust and talk concernedly amongst themselves of how awful it all is. I enjoyed Blood Diamond, Babel and Syriana, but they all left a vague sense of discontent in my stomach. They're films rather than movies to borrow a Cameron (James not David) analogy, and furthermore films designed to highlight "situations" as well as, and sometimes instead of, telling a story. Even the best films of this type (and three of them are listed above) are the sort of cinematic experiences I like to have once, and don't tend to revisit. I have to be in a particular mood for these films, and perhaps I avoided City of God before because it caught me when I wasn't.
I needn't have worried though. In truth this is closer to movie cinema than film cinema: interweaving storylines, a host of colourful characters and direction touched with flare. The further into the piece I was reminded of no director more than Scorsese. This cast of gangsters with their nicknames and dress codes, talking the way they do between viscious gun fights; the tense pacing, the bloody denouement ... this film could be twinned with Goodfellas or Gangs of New York; it is practically separated at birth from The Departed. There are touches, most obviously the on-screen chapter titles, obviously pulled from the North American gangster filmography, but the movie is strong enough and original enough that it's reasonable to to expect to see it stolen from in Hollywood movies for years to come.