Bope Movie Backfires

Hello Americans and Brazilians in the US: has anyone heard anything about Tropa de Elite coming out in the States? The representative for the American distributor won't respond to my emails and they're already 3 months late in releasing the movie.

Anyway, Globo had this little story recently about how in 2008, the number of applicants to BOPE tripled. After the movie was released there were 1,000 applicants, coming from all over Brazil. One applicant noted he was applying because he thought he'd get more women and make more money.

But like in the movie, very few applicants actually make it through the final rounds of training to become actual BOPE officers: during a recent course, 567 people signed up to go through the intense boot camp training, and only 18 were left at the end.

The movie in question, "Tropa de Elite," was trying to show the abuses of the BOPE and how much of what they're doing is in vain, in an endless, bloody urban war, and that although at first glance it may be "glamorous" to be a part of the elite force, it is actually destructive and horrible and turns you into a ruthless, heartless killer. People apparently didn't really get that.

Oh and by the way: you have to be a military police officer in Rio or a similar Brazilian institution linked to the police in order to apply.

Comments

[Adam]

I read that Brazilian newspaper delivery boys in Boston were selling a $10 copy of Tropa de Elite with the morning paper.

[Joe Smith]

I have friends that have an apartment in Vidigal and they claim to have seen the supposedly untouchable members of BOPE selling weapons to the traficantes there...So much for the police that cannot be bought.