Bus 174 (2002) User Reviews

High-impact documentary will have you examine your thoughts on urban violence

[debblyst · 9/10 · 11 February 2005]

Rio de Janeiro, June 12th 2000: it's Valentine's day in Brazil. In Rio's only favela-free middle-class neighborhood (Jardim Botânico), a young black man, drugged and armed, hijacks bus 174 with a dozen passengers in one of Rio's busiest avenues in mid-afternoon. What would have been just one more event in Rio's violence statistics turns out to be a nationwide live-TV horror show. The traffic stops, the elite police surround the area, the bandit threatens to shoot the passengers and then kill himself. The "negotiation" lasts four hours, involves even the governor of Rio de Janeiro state, in what became one of the highest rating events on Brazilian TV history and exposed one of the most stupid and catastrophic police strategies ever devised.

As the negotiation goes on, TV reporters find out that the young hijacker is in fact a survivor of one of Rio's most horrendous crimes: as a young street kid he had escaped being murdered by policemen in the infamous Candelária child mass murder in the early 90s and, instead of being protected by the government, he was sent to a reform unit under appalling conditions (the facilities of the reform unit are some of the most shocking scenes in "Bus 174"). He had also, as a young child, witnessed bandits stab his mother being to death by bandits in front of him.

This powerful documentary includes live TV scenes of the actual hijack and its tragic denouement -- the shooting of one the victims and the bandit's arrest and subsequent assassination by the police, reported then as suicide and eventually proved in court to be manslaughter. It also contains interviews with social workers and sociologists (some of them insightful, others the usual B.S.), shocking interviews with bandits and street kids who knew him, and the testimony of some of the passengers and policemen who were part of the action. If this were a work of fiction, it would be hard to believe, but it's all true.

The opening sequence is especially powerful and revealing: it's one uninterrupted aerial shot of Rio's beautiful shoreline, leading to the imposing mansions of the wealthy, then up to the forest on top of Vidigal hill -- and suddenly the camera tilts downwards and, like a punch in the jaw, we see the immense favela of Rocinha, the largest in Latin America, with some 200,000 inhabitants -- all of that part of the same neighborhood, high-profile wealth and destitute poverty co-existing side by side, sharing the same few square miles.

This is a film that poses a series of difficult questions on violence, public education, social welfare, child abuse, imprisonment policies, juvenile crime, police training and strategy, police abuse, drug addiction, TV ethics and responsibility, the role of social work and rehab, poverty and injustice. No easy answers or solutions here, but very important and disturbing questions all the same.

Do not watch this if you're in search of light entertainment! On the other hand, if you want to know a little bit about what it's like to live in a big city in the Third World -- where the rich and the poor are simultaneously so close (geographically) and far apart (in human and social rights) at the same time -- don't miss it!! If you live in a rich country, prepare to be shocked.

Devastating

[noimagination · 9/10 · 20 April 2004]

One of those moments when you realise that you know nothing about the roots of another culture or society. And when you start learning, the pits of your stomach heave and your heart collapses at the deplorable and impossibly harsh reality of other people's lives.

Onibus 174 is the piecing together of an event that took place in 2000 in Rio de Janeiro, where a gunman took a busload of passengers hostage. The whole event was televised live to the nation, and this documentary film uses this footage, along with interviews with survivors, friends and relatives of the gunman, to document the implications of a society that treats its poor with a disdain not even reserved for deformed animals.

I can honestly say I have never sat through a film that was as difficult to watch as this. Throughout most of it my stomach clenched with anxiety, pity, misery and sadness. I cried at the plight of the street kids. I cried at the description of the child seeing his mother being stabbed 3 times and crawling about with a kitchen knife sticking out of her shoulder until she died in front of him. I cried at the last moments of the hijacking. And I cried at the reaction of the baying, blood-thirsty crowd of on-lookers at the end. And all this from live images. As it happened. The crude, devastating vicissitudes of a society wracked with poverty and hardship.

I have no idea why this film affected me so profoundly, but there's no doubt that is was largely to do with witnessing the real effects of social meltdown. The street kids are merely trying to gather together the semblance of an existence. Suddenly the thefts and muggings became understandable; I could be swayed to be not just sympathetic towards, but defensive of their crime, such is the extent of their horrendous degradation. And this is the result of rendering them invisible.

A film that's devastating, enlightening and enfuriating in equal parts. It has to be watched, but beware that it'll make you all too aware of your own impotence.

Exposes the weaknesses in Brazil society

[howard.schumann · 9/10 · 23 August 2004]

"It is no use killing street kids. There will always be more of them" - 17-year old at the Sao Martinho shelter

Brazil has approximately seven million children working and living on the streets of its cities, finding street life an acceptable alternative to abuse and poverty at home. On the streets, children do whatever it takes to survive including stealing, drugs, and often murder and most end up in juvenile detention centers or in prisons where their antisocial behavior is reinforced. In his powerful documentary, Bus 174, Jose Padilha depicts one of the most publicized media events of 2000, the hijacking of a city bus in a wealthy part of Rio by a former street kid, Sandro do Nacimento, igniting a standoff with the police and a media circus that lasted for hours on live TV.

The film begins with aerial shots of the crowded city while the homeless talk about the reasons they ended up on the streets. The camera then zooms in to a solitary bus surrounded by police. Due to the failure of the Brazilian police to cordon off the area, the crime scene swarmed with cameramen, journalists, police, and passersby, adding to a scene of chaos and confusion. As the drama begins to unfold, we see Sandro holding one hostage by the neck, walking up and down the bus as if not knowing what to do. At first, he seems uncertain, wrapping a towel around his face to hide from the camera and making unusual demands from the police such as a small sum of money, a hand grenade, and a bus driver.

Things become more desperate when one of the female hostages writes in lipstick on the windshield "He is going to kill us all at 6:00. Help us." but the police do nothing except to stand around. Police said later that the presence of the live TV cameras inhibited them from taking aggressive measures to end the ordeal.

Using original footage from Global TV and interviews with former hostages, friends and relatives of the hijacker, sociologists, and police who participated in the standoff, Padilha focuses not only on the events as they took place but on the circumstances that may have triggered it. Padilha said in an interview, "There was a lot of press coverage, but it was cloudy, it wasn't complete. It was focused on the police, and on the political side of the issue. I felt like I was missing something, I was missing the hijacker." What he finds does not justify Sandro's actions, but makes them more comprehensible. Padilha reveals that Sandro, at age 6, witnessed his mother being stabbed to death in a robbery.

Unable to come to grips emotionally with the tragedy, he became a street kid in the Copacabana area. By the time of the hijacking, Sandro had been in prisons and juvenile detention centers where, according to Padilha, inmates are regularly brutalized. In 1993, he was involved in an incident in front of the Candelaria Church where he often slept in which plainclothes policemen intentionally gunned down eight street children, many who were his friends, an incident Sandro recalls emotionally when shouting at the police from inside the bus.

The film also reveals the connection many of the hostages felt for their tormentor, though deeply afraid for their lives. Some felt that they were participating in a made for TV movie because of the times Sandro would tell them to pretend that they were in danger, although he yells at the police that "this ain't no action movie but some serious sh**". Though Padilha retains his objectivity throughout, he uses the hijacking to expose the weaknesses in Brazil's society that make incidents like this possible.

"We treat those kids as though they are invisible," he says. "They're always trying to get your attention, to get your money. And they realized they could get your attention through violence, because violence attracts the media." Bus 174 attracts our attention immediately and the tension is palpable until its moving conclusion. Like the recent City of God, Bus 174 does not provide any solutions but shines some light on a problem many would prefer to keep hidden, perhaps in the process making the invisible a little less so.

The film is brilliantly told through interviews and news footage.

[shootfilmordie · 26 July 2004]

I can't disagree more with the previous reviewer about this film. The subject is so completely eye opening for American's to see, I think it should be mandatory viewing for high school kids.

Rio de Janeiro is such a different kind of city compared to anything in our country. In the legal system, people are treated worse then animals. The police force is completely untrained. Thousands of homeless children walk the streets and are systematically murdered by police and people who are aggravated by their presence. To many people, killing off the homeless children is the only solution to a staggering social problem.

The kidnapper in "Bus 174" is a product of the city and the time. What started out as a basic robbery, became a hostage situation where social problems were brought to the attention of millions of people. He became an accidental spokesman for the plight of homeless children in Rio.

No one can guess how badly the police attempt to resolve the situation. It has become a case study for police all over the world on how a hostage situation can be poorly handled.

As a film, it kept my attention the whole time, and not using a narrator and letting the story unfold simply through interviews and news footage is classic documentary style. Too many filmmakers and news personalities put themselves into their films.

The filmmakers in "Bus 174" were able to capture the story of the hijacker, and the sociology of the city of Rio.

Dramatic, insightful and excellently crafted. One of the best documentaries I've seen.

[PyrolyticCarbon · 10/10 · 27 January 2006]

When I rented this movie I had no real idea what to expect. I had no prior knowledge of the event or of the documentary itself, and all that I was going on was another viewers review on my DVD rental queue, the rating itself, and the tagline - that the bus was hijacked and broadcast live on television.

It's also hard hitting. The team behind this documentary have done an amazing job to bring the story and the messages to the front of the film, and it's amazing just how well they do it.

Movie: The documentary hit me probably harder than any other documentary has in my life. One of the most interesting and compelling things about this is the way its structured as a movie. It builds tension and sets clear sides of good and bad guys. Then it begins to look at the characters involved and as the events occur in the actual footage they trigger investigations into characters and their past.

It's here where the film is most effective, using the real life footage from the News Stations to underpin the story, holding it together from opening to closing shot. The footage is also used as an indicator of when to jump to outside footage, be that from interviews of those involved from experts, friends and family. It's superbly pulled together.

This movie is charged with more emotion and suspense than many thrillers, and that can count against it too. You have to keep remembering that this is reality, not a movie, because it is so well delivered and paced that it can begin to feel as such.

To begin with your sympathies lie wholly with the hostages as the whole situation appears to be like any other hijack, but this alliance soon changes as the filmmakers begin to reveal the truth behind the hijacker and the situation.

Slowly, as you learn more about the hijacker you are also shown more about the Police, Street Kids, Prisons, and the mess the Country has found itself in. It's not only eye opening, it's emotionally strong and provides for a none too easy journey. A journey that should be taken and known.

It is perhaps the ending which is the most harrowing and shocking, although attention needs to be firmly kept on the equally shocking moments that brought us there. The slaughter of the Street Children by the Police, the overcrowded jails which make Guantanamo seem like a holiday camp, the Police corruption and finally the poor and destroyed life of Sandro do Nascimento, the Street Kid and hijacker.

The filmmakers have done an excellent job both in the editing and the initial structuring of the documentary. They've expertly pulled the audience to the drama of the situation and used that to highlight the real issues of their country in one of the most effective, thought provoking and intelligent documentaries I have ever seen.

Picture: Widescreen 16:9 The picture range sin quality as you would expect with the varying news sources used for footage. The quality ranges from traffic cameras to hand-held digital used in the exploration of Nascimento's past, of the Street Children and the interviews with those involved. So although the quality can be poor at times, it all adds to the realism and the actual footage feel of the film.

Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 As with the picture the audio varies in quality, but when it comes to the interviews it is clear, nothing more is needed here than the offered digital stereo.

Extras: The Making Of Bus 174 (30 minutes), Additional interviews (40 minutes), Assistant director Alexandre Lima's Social Frontiers photography exhibition, Interview with director Jose Padilha, Trailers

The Director gives a very insightful discussion on the movie, the process of making it, and ultimately life in Brazil for the less fortunate - the Street Kids who are so neglected and abused by society. You really do get a sense of pride in his Country and at the same time a sense of shame at what it is becoming. The discussion and insight into the movie and the process behind finding out about Nascimento and the Street Kids is quite in-depth, giving a good understanding of what is involved in making such a strong and unbiased documentary.

The additional interviews are even more eye opening and informative, not to say emotional. It's surprising just how informative they are and even without editing them down to the normal bite-sized interview snippets. Everything you'd want to know about the subjects in the movie are covered in these four interviews and from differing viewpoints, with Politics, Brazilian life and living on the streets at the forefront.

Overall This documentary ranks high in the top five I have seen to date. It's informative and insightful, providing the World with a view of Brazilian life we've never seen before and never been given the chance to understand.

It's a hard hitting and emotional film which presents to us the common and media portrayed view of what Nascimento is, slowly and carefully revealing his past to show the pain, hardship and mistreatment he and other Street Kids have received.

Dramatic and insightful, this film is one that should not be missed. It doesn't just show us about the Brazilian Street Kids either, it tells us more about the oppressed people of the World and how they can come to turn against the forces that created them. We need to understand them and to help them before they become like Nascimento.

This ain't no action movie!

[chris_hughes-2 · 9/10 · 23 December 2006]

....shouts Sandro, the central character, to the voyeuristic TV cameras, as his real-life predicament spirals towards its tragic and brutal denouement.

And he's right - this film is far more compelling and dramatic than any Hollywood product - also far more poignant and touching.

Director Padhila shows extraordinary skill in building the story to an unforgettable climax. When I watched this movie at a Manchester cinema, there were only 30 or so people in the theatre - but the silence at the close of the film was astonishing. The entire audience walked out in stunned speechlessness.

If you were impressed by "City of God", check out this slice of real life from Rio de Janiero - a world-class piece of documentary-making, and a stinging indictment of the divisions that scar Brazilian society.

An amazing, riveting, draining, depressing look at the Lord of the Flies, Brazil style.

[ikanboy · 9/10 · 25 May 2006]

I saw this movie over 4 days. I Tivo'd it and then had to stop after twenty minutes, take time off and then come back to it. Then my wife got involved so I started it again, from the beginning. She dropped out after an hour. "It's too depressing, I feel so helpless, I know there's going to be people killed." So I finally got through it. Wow! It is a documentary about a "street kid" who holds passengers on a bus hostage. For some reason, and this is how the documentary was able to be made, the media was allowed to camp next to the bus. This proves to be the reason the police find themselves hamstrung to resolve the situation in the professional way - which to be blunt would have been to put a bullet through Sandro's head when he gave them ample opportunity - out of fear of letting the TV audience see them act harshly.

It's a movie that covers so many levels, and yet it only tells part of the story. I hated the protagonist, I felt sorry for him. I hated the police, I empathized with them. While the plight of the street kids is covered well, and justifiably is unapologetically sympathetic to them, it is balanced by the reality of a dangerous, hopped up kid with a gun, who wants the audience to see him that way, while telling his captives that they are all part of a media play.

As one of the captives says: "There were two dialogs going on, the one in the bus ("act scared, pretend I've killed you") and the one (projected to the police and media to the outside"- namely:)"I'm going to kill this bitch at 6 o'clock." We can guess the ending! While the drama plays out the movie takes us off on explanatory side trips. We learn about how Sandro became a street kid, after watching his mother murdered, and then become a glue sniffing lost boy, stealing and robbing for his food and his fix. The movie condemns Brazil's society for creating Sandro's, then ignoring him, and then punishing him brutally when he breaks the law. It's the kids against the police, and the police are just adult versions of the kids: poor, desperate angry males given a job with no training.

Read the papers in the last week and you'll see that over 175 of these kids were massacred by police for defending themselves, and it's a recurring theme in Brazil. The street kids are the Sunni and the police are the Shia death squads! What's missing is the story of the police, and the biggest piece of all the story of how/why Brazil got to be this way. The movie doesn't try to offer answers, but it's one hell of a cautionary tale for the future! Think of all the urban mazes that are producing angry, alienated, desperate young males. Think of how they can be manipulated by those who wish to use them for their agendas. Here in the US, in D.C., a trial of a man who used just such a malleable kid to help him pick off a dozen people with a rifle. Then there are the slums of the Middle East and Africa....

One of the Saddest Day in the Wonderful City of Rio de Janeiro

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 21 April 2005]

On June 12th, 2000, the bus 174 is hijacked on the afternoon by a thief former street boy. The event is broadcast by TV, and ends in a tragic way due to the the stupid action of the police force, not prepared for such situation. Yesterday I saw this DVD, relative to a day that I wish I could erase from my mind, certainly one of the saddest day in the wonderful city of Rio de Janeiro. The documentary shows what happened, but I did not like its edition. The director José Padilha was concerned in showing the profile of Sandro in the middle of the hijack, breaking the tension and not transmitting to the overseas viewers the reality of that specific of the moment.

Sandro threatened the passengers, most of them young women, with his gun, but in that moment nobody knew who he was. We only kept seeing that man on TV, with persons that could be our relatives or friends, putting the gun on their heads and simulating that one girl was shot. I remember I cried, and if I had the power of killing a human being, I would certainly hit that human-shaped animal. Therefore, the unprepared SWAT (BOPE) policeman who shot the victim probably was so upset with the situation as most of the Brazilian population, and I believe most of the viewers mentally pulled the trigger of his gun with him. The problem is, he used a "huge" gun instead of a pistol for such assault , and he was disturbed, so he killed the victim, instead of the criminal.

Later, we became aware that Sandro was a victim of our society as brilliantly showed in the documentary, but unfortunately it does not give any sympathy for him or for what he did.

With regard to the jails in Rio de Janeiro, this is the reflex of a country that pays less than US$ 100,00 (one hundred dollars) per month to a worker, and has a huge reserve army looking for a job. Can you imagine how is the "house" in the slum of such a hard worker? So the jail shall really look like a hell, otherwise most of our population would try to move to there to have a better housing.

In the Extras of the DVD, there is an interview with a hypocrite sociologist, who uses beautiful words and sayings, but who does not walk the way he talks. This guy omitted that he was a big-shot ("Chief of Police" or something equivalent) in the State Police Force of "the governor who was disputing the election to president", and he did not improve anything in the police force. The social problems happen not only in Brazil, but in most of the Third World countries, and a great part is caused by the exploitation of the rich countries since our "discovery", draining our savings, which should be used for improving the life of our citizens, in external debts easily contracted by corrupt governors and impossible to be paid. With regard to the theme "invisibility and changes in the society", this sociologist moved with his family to the United States, so he resolved his life in the easiest way. Unfortunately, my family, my friends and I have to live with the mentioned problem, and the way we have to try to improve life in Brazil is trying to elect better politicians. But unfortunately, power corrupts, and even when we hopefully elect a former worker expecting better changes, the president does not respect his campaign promises and uses only demagogy and propaganda, as a good reader of Machiavelli's "The Prince". I do not like writing long reviews, so sorry for releasing these things off my chest, but our situation is much more complicated and complex than exposed in the imbecile worldwide interview of this sociologist. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Onibus 174" ("Bus 174")

Nurture Vs Nature –It's Not All Black And White. Bus 174 Delves Into the Gray

[canisminor_ · 7/10 · 28 May 2005]

On June 12, 2000 Sandro de Nascimento stepped onto a bus in Rio de Jeneiro, brandished a handgun and demanded money from its patrons. It was just another day in Rio. Well, it was, until an unnecessarily prompt response time by police turned the simple robbery into a complex hostage situation destined to be botched through incompetence. Toss in virtually unrestricted media coverage throughout the five-hour ordeal and what followed was a sequence of dramatized misfortunes to rival the wet dreams of any reality TV producer.

Bus 174, is a documentary by Jose Padilha, focusing on the "how's" and "why's" of the avoidable tragedy that was this day-long fiasco. Relying heavily on in-your-face news footage that was broadcast live to Brazilians around the country; as well as in-depth interviews with hostages, police officers and friends and family of Sandro, Padilha inter-cuts the events of June 12 with the story of Sandro's life as a doomed street kid shunned from society. In so doing, Padilha addresses that age-old ideological argument of nurture vs nature. Did Sandro instigate the events leading to this tragedy of police incompetence simply because it was bread into him? Or might there be more to the story? Had he believed the former, Padihla would have had a much shorter film on his hands. Fortunately for us though, he chose to go against the teachings from the "school of Bush", painting the scenario, not in black and white, but in a muddled gray.

And so we are told the story of a child who, after witnessing the brutal murder of his mother at the age of 5, was destined for a life on the streets where crime is simply a means of survival. We are told of the socio-economical issues in Brazil, where its class system has divided the nation to a point where rich ignore the poor (unless it's to drop slabs of rock on their heads while they sleep). We are told of a government whose brutal attitude towards street kids helped instigate the Candelaria massacres (where Sandro again got to witness the slaying of the people he called family). And we are told of a penal system so inhumane and violent, people would rather die then go to jail. What we are told is that violence begets violence.

As manipulative and subjective as some documentary film-making can be, it is often easy for critics to discredit a film like this as being socialist propaganda (just ask Michael Moore). But it is to Padihla's credit that he is able to avoid this by simply presenting us with the information he has acquired. We are not force-fed opinions and told what to believe, nor is Sandro portrayed as some sort of martyr for equal-rights, we are simply given the full story and are then left to draw our own conclusions.

Because what some may see as black and white, the rest of us see as shades of gray -Shaun English

An awesome, terrifying documentary

[patherto · 10/10 · 15 October 2004]

The camera flies effortlessly over the city, taking in fabulous skyscrapers and scrappy slums. Then the story begins. A young man, apparently high on something, has hijacked a bus and demands hand grenades and a second pistol. The police, and soon the television cameras, surround the bus. The SWAT team is ready, yet for some reason (perhaps the cameras?) is not brought into play. This is just the start of a harrowing journey painstakingly tracing the path the young man took to this event. Along the way we meet his friends and relatives, and learn about the unholy life of a street kid. I don't think I could ever watch this film again, but I will never forget it.

Moving documentary about a group of invisible sufferers - Brazil's homeless

[colettesplace · 7/10 · 3 December 2004]

Being homeless is dangerous wherever you live. But in Brazil, as first-time director José Padilha reveals in his documentary, Bus 174, it's even more likely to be lethal.

About Sandro, a young prison escapee who hijacked a bus four years ago, Bus 174 follows one of the most-documented hostage situations ever – there was around 21 hours of TV footage for the five-hour standoff. Due to police underfunding and mismanagement, political interference and the fact that the situation was being broadcast live, a unique standoff occurred, where both police and the media were so close to the hostage victims as to be able to touch hands with them through the windows of the bus.

Padilha tells the story as if it were a thriller, interspersing Bus 174 with the story of Sandro's sordid life: from leaving home at the age of 8 after witnessing his mother's murder, to surviving the 1993 Candelabrian Street Kids Massacre, to drug addiction and incarceration, to his desperate search for recognition.

As much an emotive story of one doomed youth as it is an indictment of Brazil's horrific correctional facilities, corrupt police and cultural indifference towards 'the invisible street kids who inevitably…confront us with their violence', Bus 174 is a powerful ride.***½/*****

No one should miss this documentary

[marcioboro · 10/10 · 23 January 2003]

As a documentary viewer, I went to see this one in the movies in Brazil. Being living outside by the time that the event happened, I was not aware of what I was going to see (even though I knew the end of the story).

Got out completely chocked, not only by the story, but also by the work of the director, an excellent work, excellent script, music, etc.; showing all sides of the story (the hostages, the kidnapper, the police, the press, the public). It is a must-see documentary as it shows what is reality in the world that all of us live in.

The documentary open our eyes to so many things that seems daily-life for us that should be mandatory at least in Brazil (I believe for the world).

But prepare to become a little depressed, is strong (not for the scenes indeed, but for the story itself). But that is life, not Spider-man...

Window into another world.

[juliankennedy23 · 7/10 · 1 January 2005]

Score 7/10 Sandro is the name of our protagonist in Bus 174. The film is the latest in a long line of documentaries dealing with the street children of Brazil. This documentary is simply the cream of the crop. Using actual footage of a hostage crisis where Sandro takes a municipal bus hostage the film creates great tension for the viewer. (Especially American viewers like myself who have no idea how this turns out.) Interspersed between scenes of the hostage crisis are talking head interviews (a mixed bag from fascinating like Sandro's Aunt to annoying such as Sandro's social worker). Most fascinating is the sheer volume of footage from Sandro's street life before the crisis. The Documentary filmmakers really went out of their way to dig up these treasures.

The documentary is not without flaws however. The sheer volume of people who helped Sandro out in his young life undercuts the whole street kid premise of the film. The middle third does drag as many have noted and there is a horribly misjudged scene in a jail where prisoners shout out their grievances. (Shot in the negative like the monster vision from a mid-nineties creature feature it is a clear fabrication as the filmmakers were denied access to the actual jail in question. It is unnecessary and kills the mood like that Trey Parker style cartoon in Bowling for Columbine).

Those overall minor flaws aside this is one fascinating documentary that truly takes you into another world. Despite cursing and brief male nudity I would recommend this to every high school history class to see how the third world really lives.

A partial and unconvincing argument

[ph-16 · 4/10 · 20 October 2004]

To be quite honest, I was bored by this film. The reason for my boredom was the fact that the film was incredibly partial and preached to me non-stop. The film is a documentary of a real-life bus hijack that happened in Rio in 2000.

The film was imaginatively put together but I felt that it was incredibly unsophisticated and expected the audience to take whatever they were given as being true. The bus hijacker was made out to be a victim of society. We were shown many images of how awful the Brazilian prisons are and how tough street life for Brazilian children is.

I do not doubt either of these contentions. However, as the hijacker experienced both street-life and prison life, we are told that his decline into petty crime and eventually hi-jacking is both a product of his childhood and inevitable.

To support this claim we are given evidence by professionals such as sociologists. We are also continually fed claims by his family and social worker that he was not a killer and that he only killed when the police rushed him. I totally agree that the police handled the hijacking very poorly but I do not buy the idea that the hijacker was a victim and that the deaths were fault of the police.

This is not the way to make a convincing argument or to make a documentary.

It is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen

[frnja · 29 October 2004]

This film is an example of in-depth journalism, the way it is not done in the mainstream, commercial media. Instead of focusing on the hijacking of the bus, which is the most attractive footage in this documentary, this documentary decides to explain the context and causes that led the hijacker to perform a suicidal, desperate action, such as hijacking a public bus in the middle of the day. It is an extremely delicate and elaborate work which attempts to present an all-encompassing picture, one that forbids taking sides easily. It is not excusing the perpetrator of the crime in any way, but, still, it is demonstrating how much information we are missing when we, for example, read daily crime reports in newspapers. Instead of playing on the card of the expected outrage over this drug-addicted person who clearly did something extremely wrong, this film will take you several steps further. By showing a more complete frame of Brazilian society in a fierce tour de force, the authors of this film make the spectator question his or hers opinions and attitudes over and over again. It is a documentary that sticks with you for more than one day.

A movie that haunted me for a long time

[witness-7 · 9/10 · 10 March 2007]

I've seen excellent documentaries about hostage situations before (e.g., One Day in September). While the storytelling, per se, was very good, it wasn't top notch. And sure, there are some heavy-handed messages and biases in the documentary. But on the whole, I thought the director inter-weaved different viewpoints on the events -- from middle class citizens to SWAT team members to prisoners who grew up in the favelas. But a few things about this film made it more memorable than many of the others.

For one, the access to video coverage is astounding. The multiple angles, the slow-motion footage... combined with how this event played out provided the sort of visibility that many people wish we had for JFK's assassination.

Another was the cultural context. There's quite a lot about the organization of the police force, the crowd reaction to the situation, the Brazilian conditions of poverty and homelessness, etc., that are very foreign to many Western ways of thinking.

And oddly, some of the contributed footage of this film is stunningly beautiful. Using sweeping helicopter vistas of Rio, it's good and bad neighborhoods, it's churches and official palaces -- it all provided a vibrant and even loving context to the troubled city in which these events take place on a much smaller scale.

Highly recommended even if you don't like documentaries

[Æthelred · 9/10 · 14 November 2003]

Warning: these comments contain a couple of spoilers, albeit mild ones that don't give away very much.

In their documentary of a hostage standoff aboard a city bus that occurred in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 12, 2000, the creators of "Bus 174" ("Ônibus 174" in Portuguese) have created a memorable documentary that follows the best traditions of Errol Morris. The hours-long hostage seizure was shown live on Brazilian television and gripped the country as it unfolded, probably unleashing the same feelings of horror, frustration, and anger that were generated by the live coverage of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. Mood-setting music accompanies footage of the drama and dénouement, which in turn is interrupted by interviews of eyewitnesses and of people familiar with the perpetrator's background and upbringing. The result is not the doctrinaire presentation and predictable condemnation that infect too many documentaries of this type. Though earnest, the filmmakers are fair: the police interviewees come across as intelligent and well-trained, and the film conveys the predicament that the police faced in how to deal with the psychotic hostage-taker and his captives.

The videotape of hundreds of infuriated people converging on the hostage-taker after the standoff ends, wanting to tear him limb from limb, is destined to become one of the classic crowd scenes in film. It's far more powerful than the celebrated "Odessa steps" crowd scene in Sergei M. Eisenstein's 1925 classic film "Battleship Potemkin" ("Bronenosets Potyomkin" in Russian). It would be worth seeing "Bus 174" for this footage alone.

One note on context: a number of downbeat films about Brazilian society have emerged in recent years, and if you've seen "Bus 174," "Central Station" ("Central do Brasil"), and "City of God" ("Cidade de Deus"), along with the older "Pixote," you could be forgiven for thinking that urban Brazil is hellish. That would be too simple. Though beset by high income inequality and far too much urban violent crime, Brazil is a complex country inhabited by millions of sophisticated citizens capable of operating at the frontiers of applied and pure technology and of producing great literature, music, and film. Moreover, the mentally unbalanced hostage-taker of bus 174 is hardly less addled, and hardly less cared for by society, than tens of people I pass by on a typical work day in San Francisco. In that sense, "Bus 174" is a cautionary tale about what could happen in first world cities like San Francisco that are overrun with mentally ill and/or drug-addicted street people.

In sum, highly recommended.

Great Doc!

[talk-2 · 8/10 · 11 July 2005]

I am not going to rant the storyline, you can figure that out. But if you are into docs that can effect you, then definitely seek this one out. I have to admit, the pacing is slow at the very beginning but I think that was deliberate, cuz by the end you are glued to what unfolds. Maybe it's to mirror the pace of the events of the hostage taking? Doesn't matter, if you stick with it till the end, you will be faced with some hard questions about violence, power, the media, poverty, I think certain types of docs leave you searching for more answers, sometimes to questions that don't have answers. Thats a good thing.

Dramatic documentary at its finest

[Chris_Docker · 8/10 · 5 May 2004]

In June 2000 in Rio de Janeiro, a homeless adolescent attempts to rob a bus and ends up taking the passengers hostage. The bus was rapidly surrounded not only by police but several television crews. the resultant footage provides much of the material for this dramatic account which results in one of the most engaging documentaries of the year. The backdrop of interviews, visits to prisons where he grew up, and factual information about the policing in Rio provide an emotional involvement and realism that is so often lacking. There is barely a moment in the whole two hours of the movie where the audience isn't on the edge of its seat. The resolution, botched by the authorities, shows up the terrible inadequacies not only of the Brasilian police system but of the social structure and inequalities it is unequipped to deal with.

Nice but no biggie

[=G= · 6/10 · 21 July 2004]

"Bus 174" is a well crafted documentary which tells of a Rio de Janeiro city public bus hijacking which, as documentary material goes (WWII, 9/11, etc.), was not a big deal. Of course, it was a big deal to the hijacker who took the patrons of the stationary Copacabana bus hostage on board remaining in the same location for the duration and to the hostages who were constantly threatened with a gun. The film shows us ample back story about the slums of Rio, Sandro the street punk hijacker, the plight and blight of Rio's street kids, and other societal ills of Brazil's largest metropolis including much beautiful aerial photography of the city. The poor police control of the hijack area allowed for much news footage to be shot with lots of up close and personal looks at the hijacker, hostages, and sloppy police work. However, when all is said and done and this documentary is compared with real documentary treasures like Ken Burns Civil War, "Bus 174" doesn't measure up as well and the populace numbers and critical reviews would suggest. An English language narration would have gone a long way toward making this worthy non-narrated effort more cogent and elucidative. Expect a whole lot of subtitle reading, some drama, and a little action at the very end. (B)

Utterly Incredible. You CANNOT afford to miss this!

[paulgeaf · 9/10 · 6 April 2010]

I never claimed to be any movie reviewer, I just like to come and comment after I watch a film and if someone reads it, they read it. All I try to do I suppose is convey something of what that movie made me feel. I have to say that this movie is probably one of the most difficult ones I have ever tried to comment on. It is hard to know where to begin. Obviously, the plot is simple (I know it is a real documentary! Don't misunderstand me using the word plot), there is a young guy on a bus with some innocent people and he is holding them at gunpoint. they are his hostages and he quickly lets it be known that he is in control here.

Everyone's fate is in his hands.

That lays out a taste of what you are in for when you sit down to this, right at the beginning you are sucked in and are listening to his words, wondering why and what makes a man come to a situation like that.

The great thing about this film is that the creators didn't miss this. they spend a lot of time showing us why. Trying to uncover the multitude of reasons why a man would find himself in a situation like this. it makes for a fascinating yet harrowing story.

What starts off as a mad shooting incident then becomes a different kind of film. a study, a documentary in the proper sense. a documentary of some poor guys non life. Before I get accused of sympathising with the guy as if he was innocent, don't think that. It is just interesting to learn, like when you watch this, that there is always a few more layers to a story than you might ever think!

I cannot recommend this film enough and gave it 9 stars!

This is about humanity and emotions and cruelty and greed.

It is about us all.

Watch it!

real hostage drama

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 25 June 2016]

It's June 12, 2000, Rio de Janeiro. Street kid Sandro do Nascimento takes a bus full of passengers hostage. The SWAT team arrives followed closely by the media. It becomes a day-long ordeal as it gets broadcast live on TV. Sandro is high on drugs and eventually takes one of his hostage with him. The police attempts to kill him but it ends with both Sandro and hostage dead. Sandro had witnessed his mother's gruesome murder at the age of 6 and became a street kid. The doc also shows the problems he and other kids faced from the police and the invisibility of their existence. This is a tough documentary. It's unflinching in the street life and even the final deaths in the hostage drama. The production is not necessarily that slick. The drama is in the story.

A genuine attempt to answer the question, "Why?"

[prettyh · 9/10 · 22 February 2011]

This documentary stood out for me from others of its ilk, because it focuses not just on what happened on a bus one summer day in Brazil, but also reaches into the socioeconomic situation at the time and gives us a real glimpse of why a young man would be driven to take people hostage, and how he felt he had no other options outside of a life of crime.

Watching "Bus 174" is like observing a criminal event through a prism. There are countless sides to every element of it. The beauty of Rio de Janeiro is juxtaposed on screen with the horrors as we're taken through the escalation of a hostage situation, all graphically captured by Brazilian TV camera crews. We can see how wide the gulf is between the rich and the poor, even though the lives of each are lived only miles apart in the same city. We are told how inadequately the police force has been trained and equipped to deal with the crime in the city, let alone such a volatile situation. And we're shown how a single bus stopped on a busy thru-way brings an entire city to a screeching halt. With the rich context given to us by the filmmakers, we find ourselves sympathizing with the gunman (Sandro do Nascimento) *and* his hostages. And while we now know how badly it will end, we can't help but hope that somehow Sadro's surrender will be accepted, that he and all of the hostages will make it out unscathed, that history can be rewritten. Tragically, it cannot, and we are shown the moments when lives are lost. We're also left to contemplate how many ways this could have ended differently, and how little it may have taken to do so.

Interviews with everyone, from survivors to police personnel to reporters on the scene, as well as people who knew Sandro during his horrific childhood, are very effective in making us feel as though we too were there during that harrowing 4-hour long encounter. Learning about the gunman's tragic history - what he had to survive to reach even the young age he had when this incident ended his life - and how, in the aftermath, police scrambled to re-frame the incident in their favour, add to the viewer's internal conflict. We're not accustomed to experiencing such empathy for both hostage-taker and victim. That is a major strength of this film: we're allowed to see it from all sides, which makes it that much more heartbreaking in the end.

This is not for the faint of heart. We're not spared much. But "Bus 174" is a documentary after which others should strive to model themselves. It is truly a must-see, as it comes as close as anything possibly can to answering what we always ask after a tragedy: "Why?"

Clever Documentary

[dubesor · 7/10 · 28 September 2003]

Highly recommended. This Brazilian feature brings you up close to the hostage situation of Bus 174 in Rio de Janiero. Real-life footage of the incident, heavily interspersed with eyewitness testimonies makes for a moving documentary. Even when the film seems to go off on a tangent, the sidetrack is always meaningful (serving to explain the real reasons behind the tragedy). Some parts of the movie reminded me of Fernando Meirelles' 'City of God'; the same street culture is portrayed almost twenty years since.

Why?

[mbanford-la1 · 1/10 · 20 May 2010]

Why was a film made about someone who shouldn't have been on the bus, in a district he did not belong, take a woman's life who had a child then when he himself gets shot and killed the Policeman who shot him has to appear in court? It seems as though because he was poor he is alleviated from all his civil responsibilities...is the same old " don't blame him, blame society" nonsense...a truly boring film that doesn't deserve the time of day and on a subject of a man who was nothing more than a piece of rubbish..the police were doing their job and in my opinion did the right thing. No point keeping someone like that in jail only for the state to upkeep him