I will not add to the numerous positives reviews of the film. Really, I do not understand the negative critiques who expected something like "an action movie" of the kidnap of the bus. I was fortunate to see the film on TV and lost the first 5 minutes or so. I think the movie would have been better without this first 5 minutes which tells you important facts in Sandro (the kidnapper) life which are essential to the drama that unfold after that. And the same details are developed during the film. I prefer this "developing approach" that by luck I had the opportunity to see, just for missing the first minutes. Anyway, to add what have already said in other commentaries, I would stress another think. How Sandro did not want to kill anybody. He is a complex character, trying to be tough with his negotiators but reluctant to pull the trigger, you can understand it on all his vacilations. As far as I remember (I was living in Brazil at those time, the kidnapping was an unintended consequence of a failed robbery to the passenger in the bus. Is like Sandro got in an spiral of situation that he couldn't manage. And all of his ferocious negotiation had an only objective. He did not want to come back to jail, a nightmare in Brazil and in most Latin American country (more than the nigthmare that is in EVERY country). I suggest to anyone who want to make the experiment, to see the film skipping the first 6 or so minutes... you will have a complete different experience of the film (sharing feelings of the crowd surrounding the bus, and then softening your position if you are compassionate enough).

Having a good subject often already is half of the work, for any documentary. This movie has a pretty good and intriguing subject, that besides does a good job at exploring and dissecting its subject thoroughly, from as many different angles as possible.It's not simply a documentary that tries to tell things as they happened but also one that goes deeper into things and explores the background of those involved. It gives the documentary multiple layers and also plenty of depth.It's one that shows how acts have consequences and how a vicious circle can have great consequences, when it keeps spiraling down. It perfectly shows the situation in Brazil at the time and puts the finger on the sore spots. It criticizes but without condemning anyone. It's a real fair documentary in about every way imaginable; to the police, to the hostages, to the hostage taker and everybody in between, that was in one way or another linked to the events or to the people involved with it. It tries to create an understanding for all of the different sides involved and most of the time it succeeds at this.It's what makes this a very compelling documentary, that is giving you a lot of inside information and makes you look differently at this particular event and maybe just even crime and violence in general and the involvement of the media.It's a documentary that uses both real archive footage of the hostage situation as well as freshly shot interviews with some of the people involved. There is a good balance between these two different things and the archive footage strengthens the interviews and vice versa as well. It doesn't really mater if you already were familiar with the subject of this movie or not. If you weren't; it's giving you all of the information you need and if you were; it's giving you lots of new stuff to ponder about and perhaps makes you even look at it differently, even if you already had a very strong, preset, opinion towards it.Simply a good documentary that handles its subject very well and interesting.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I watched this on IFC last night, I came in towards the middle, this film was so compelling, my heart was racing, I was glued! The high level of anticipation is unreal in any film I've ever watched. I am continually stunned at how people are living in other countries and what they go through, these people were just on their way to work and school and were fighting and pleading for their lives in the end. I kept asking myself, "could this happen in the US' and would our police have allowed it to have gone on so long. I pray that a sharpshooter here would have taken him out. I highly recommend this film, I can't call it a movie, it's a wrenching look at an evil moment in human history.

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