Up Against Them All (2004) User Reviews

The magic of Ackt-ing

[debblyst · 5/10 · 4 June 2005]

"Contra Todos" (Up Against Them All) is the directing feature debut of Roberto Moreira, and was produced by Fernando Meirelles (the Oscar-nominated director of "City of God"). Both films deal with urban violence within poor communities on the "wrong side" of Brazilian big cities (a huge favela in Rio de Janeiro in "City of God", a VERY dysfunctional family in the low-life outskirts of São Paulo here), but there the similarities end. While virtuoso "City of God" is a cinematic dazzler in almost every aspect, claustrophobic, ponderous and pessimistic "Contra Todos" has major problems that render audience adhesion very difficult.

In the DVD extras of "Contra Todos", director Moreira explains that, though the script outline was prepared in advance, most of the dialog and situations were created as a result of improvisational exercises with the cast. Well, it certainly shows! What we see here is a filmmaker fascinated by the "Ackt-ing process", letting his actors indulge in narcissistic show-offs ("feeeeeel-ing", "thiiiiink-ing", shouting, crying, re-Ackt-ing, etc), while clumping the story with clichés, forced twists and loose ends. The improvisational modus operandi has worked wonders for a few experienced filmmakers like Godard, Fellini, Mike Leigh, Altman, John Sayles and even a talented "beginner" like Fernando Meirelles himself, but Moreira is not (yet) in that league.

"Contra Todos" has some qualities -- it's undeniably honest and heartfelt -- but is drowned in problems, especially the lack of interest those grim, repulsive characters inspire in the audience, the totally unbelievable denouement, and Moreira's complete lack of humor or irony. Furthermore, "Contra Todos" suffers from that ghastly disease of camera tremula, poor video quality, a three-buck budget and unimaginative music.

Don't watch this if you're not into shaky hand-held camera, graphic realism, and the VERY depressing side of the human soul, or if you're looking for something to cheer you up. Do watch this if you are a film student interested in knowing more about recent Brazilian films (but you can certainly see better ones than this) or are curious about improvisational acting: you'll see decent jobs by Sílvia Lourenço, who plays Soninha with evident élan (although she is too old for the part), and especially Ailton Graça, who plays Waldomiro with wholesome presence and effortless charisma (as he had already shown in "Carandiru"), making the film a little warmer every time he's on screen.

What tells this movie about Brazil?

[tgoosens · 8/10 · 3 December 2004]

I've seen this movie, when I was traveling in Brazil. I found it difficult to really understand Brazilian culture and society, because it has so many regional and class differences. To see this movie in Sao Paulo itself was a revelation. It shows something of the everyday life of many Brazilians. On the other side, it is sometimes a little bit over-dramatized. And that's the only negative comment I have on this film. It's sometimes too much, too much sex, too many murders and too much cynicism for one film. The director could film some things a bit more subtle, it would make the film more effective.

Despite this I liked the movie and the way the story unravels itself. The characters are complex, and very much like real-life people. Not pretty American actors and actresses with a lot of cosmetics, but people who could be ugly and beautiful at the same time. That makes the film realistic, even when the story is not that convincing.

Festival dross

[Chris Knipp · 1/10 · 1 May 2005]

Why were there so many people crowding into an evening showing of Roberto Moreira's "Up Against Them All" ("Contra Todos") at the San Francisco Film Festival? "It's about a hit man," my friend said. "Well. . . and it's Brazilian," I added. Beautiful multicolored people, tropical weather, lush rhythms, and a hip gangster plot? Ample enticements no doubt.

Somebody forgot to tell us one little detail: this is a very bad movie, really pretty horrible, and as unpleasant to watch as it is poorly made.

So how on earth did "Contra Todos" get to make the rounds of Berlin, Melbourne, London, Manila, Stockholm, Cairo, Chicago, numerous smaller local festivals, and now San Francisco? Apparently, because of the way the promotional process and the film festival circuit work.

First of all, it won first prize at the Rio Film Festival where it was called the best Brazilian movie of the year. It must have been a bad year; they've had much, much better ones. Next, snappy synopses in catalogs plus imaginary buzz lead to crowded auditoriums and -- since the movie isn't featured anywhere and so avoids close scrutiny by critics -- it keeps going the rounds.

Festival blurbs aimed at promotion sometimes goose it up a lot. A Chicago Festival one called "Contra Todos" "a speedball cocktail shot straight out of Brazil" and referred to Claudia's s boyfriend as the "stud of the slum-like neighborhood." Soninha is "Teodoro's nymph-like teen-aged daughter of burgeoning sexuality." The movie is "shot with the urgency of a frequently hand-held camera" and the director "works up a genuine and palpable sense of frustration borne from domestic desperation and decay." The effect is " unbearably raw and honest," and the movie hurtles "toward a conclusion as dead-ended as the lives on display." Not the best writing, but it sure pumps up the excitement for a certain kind of potential viewer.

"Contra Todos" does concern a hit man, two hit men actually, and a wife and daughter and a born-again Christian girlfriend. It's shot -- in execrably ugly digital video with no talent behind the camera-work -- mostly in a barren-looking poor suburb rather than in one of the teeming "favelas" or village-like Brazilian city slums where such wonderful films as "Black Orpheus", "Pixote," and "City of God" were made, and not in Rio this time, but São Paulo.

The hit man with family problems is Teodoro ( Giulio Lopez) and his partner with a drug problem is Waldomiro (Ailtan Graça). Both actors have a little TV experience as does the actress who plays Teodoro's sluttish blonde wife Cláudia (Leona Cavalli) and Silvia Lorenço who plays his pouting, ready-to-revolt daughter Soninha. These actors might make it through the back corners of a few telenovelas. Who knows? -- in a better directed film they might even be good. Aside from them there are some young men who get bumped off by Teordoro or, when he's busy, gangs of thugs. The principals don't work up much presence, even though the camera magnifies their pores.

A couple of observers, one at the Berlin Festival and one at London's, did see this movie's failings but alas they're buried in the Web hinterlands. Henry Sheehan noted from Berlin that the "film" (his quotes) was "the worst of the video works" shown. "The filmmaker seems to have chosen video simply because it was a cheap alternative to film," Sheehan wrote, "and hasn't made any creative use of the new medium" -- nor, he adds, done anything else creative.

Sheehan pointed out the movie's first big mistake: it "starts off as a domestic drama that's supposed to ratchet up when, half an hour into the action, Moreira reveals that the father and one of his friends are professional hit men. Waiting the thirty minutes adds nothing to the movie; it seems like a perfectly arbitrary decision and is, at the very least, a waste of time. But ratcheting up is all Moreira ever does, like a little kid who's gotten a tool kit for his birthday, and goes around banging everything in sight without rhyme, reason or skill." Devastating, but true.

Writing about the 2004 London festival for Kamera.com, Metin Alsanjak tried to look at the positive side but nonetheless gave away the lack of redeeming features in calling the performances "easily the film's best feature." Yes, very easily, given that everything else is so bad. Alsanjak admitted that " this low-budget, violent and seedy account of the lawless in Sao Paulo is devoid of any likable characters, and as a result, of hope. Too dark and cynical to be a telling account of the human condition, the film is not helped by poor subtitling.. ." Alsanjak's connecting Contra Todos to "Dogme" and Mike Leigh didn't help matters.

Apart from that meaningless first half hour in which nothing redeems the boredom of our wait for the first acts of violence -- which, when they come, are just "banging everything in sight without rhyme, reason or skill" -- Moreira clumsily tries to redeem his abrupt finale by adding what appear to be outtakes right after it, followed by an implausible ironic concluding scene where one of the characters gets married. No doubt the director wanted to exhibit the "banality of evil" of low-level hit men in working class neighborhoods, but he can't make the characters, which he sees generically, come alive for us. And the structure of the film shows that he also can't edit his material.

(Seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival on April 28, 2005.)

Life in the Periphery of a Big Brazilian City

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 12 November 2005]

In the periphery of São Paulo, the very low middle-class dysfunctional and hypocrite family of Teodoro (Giulio Lopes), Cláudia (Leona Cavalli) and the teenager Soninha (Sílvia Lourenço) have deep secrets. The religious Teodoro is indeed a hit-man, hired to kill people in the neighborhood with his friend Waldomiro (Ailton Graça). He has a lover, the very devout woman Terezinha (Martha Meola), and he wants to regenerate, going to the country with her. Cláudia has a young lover, Júlio (Ismael de Araújo), who delivers meats for his father's butcher shop. Soninha is a common sixteen years old teenager of the periphery, having active sexual life, smoking grass and loving heavy metal. When Júlio is killed and castrated in their neighborhood, the lives of the members of the family change.

"Contra Todos" is a great low budget Brazilian movie that pictures the life in the periphery of a big Brazilian city. The story is very real, uses the usual elements of the poor area of the big Brazilian cities (drug dealers, hit men, fanatic religious evangelic people, hopeless teenagers etc.), has many plot points and a surprising end, and the characters have excellent performances, acting very natural and making the story totally believable. The camera follows the characters, giving a great dynamics to the film. In the Extras of the DVD, the director Roberto Moreira explains that his screenplay had no lines, only the description of the situations, and was partially disclosed only one week before the beginning of the shootings. The actors have trainings in workshops and they used lots of improvisation, being the reason for such natural acting. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Contra Todos" ("Against Everybody")

nauseating camera work

[Robodok · 1/10 · 6 September 2006]

A shaky hand-held camera was used, presumably to give the film a documentary look, but the effect was so exaggerated that I started to get motion-sickness just from watching it. It looked like someone with cerebral palsy was holding the camera (no offense meant to CP sufferers, but I don't think you would expect to get much work as a cinematographer!) The camera work was so nauseating, and so distracting, that my wife and I considered it unwatchable and gave up on it after 10 minutes of torture. I checked back a while later (it was showing on TV), and it hadn't gotten any better. I suggest giving this one a miss unless you need to get rid of any bad sushi you may have eaten!

Real Brazilian movie!

[bruxadebis · 9/10 · 31 January 2007]

We always watch American movies with their particular accents from each region (south, west, etc). We have the same here. All foreign people must to watch this movie and need to have a open mind to accept another culture, besides American and European almost dominate the cinematographic industry.

This movie tell us about a parallel world which it isn't figured even for those who live in a big city like São Paulo. All actors are improvising and they are very realistic. The camera give us an idea of their confuse world, the loneliness of each character and invite us to share their world.

It's a real great movie and worst a rent even have it at home.

A fine Brazilian film

[jgcorrea · 26 November 2004]

Brazilian films often get more positive appraisals than they actually deserve. Rather incredibly, Contra Todos (Against Everybody) (original title, which the producers discarded: God Against Everybody) got very low GPA (grade point average) in this website. It seems to be bluntly rejected by female spectators at large. Actually, it is not so brutal. I mean as far as graphical violence is concerned. Its brutality is intrinsic as it portrays would-be lumpens, I mean underdog citizens who in fact possess high-tech equipment, who coldly perform murder orders in exchange of "grana graúda". Is this post-modern man? Is his/her only worry a quick, almost impersonal, ultra permissive lay, amidst over satiating meals ? The picture is probably the best Brazilian film of 2004, so far. Its shining editing style, à la Godard, its curious soundtrack counterpoints, its more than efficient overall cast and, above all, its original narration, with subtle non-chronological hidden points that only come to light in the epilogue, deserve at least a 6 mark.