Sorry Russ Karlberg, but you didn't get anything.The history and the way it was shoot is intensional, to represent a very bad time in Brazilian history, the years between 1980-1994. Inflation, government holding peoples money in bank, etc. The director Walter Salles said he shooted in black and white to show that bad times.Maybe only Brazilians full understand the meaning of this movie, maybe the history is indeed complicated to the people that do not lived here in that time.And for Ien Colby, who asked "Also how did they get through the gate, where were the cops?": man, why do you think they went to that very little town? Just for that, so the frontier isn't very guarded. Go there and see for yourself, it's really like that.I really enjoyed this movie and recommended it, a fine movie like all Walter Salles movies, specially for Brazilians.

the film's got very stylish, if not utterly original, camera-work throughout (that's what makes it a better-than-average movie) - and you don't mind the images' being grainy at all. the finest scene, to my mind, in this respect, was when the main characters are shot through the windshield covered by patches of rain pouring down on it. but, sadly, the characters are rather shallow, consequently hard to sympathize with, and the story isn't very convincing either - it's only mildly complicated and it does not offer more than a run-of-the-mill crime drama. it is also too redundant at some places - things it already communicated subtly and implicitly get said out in a rather direct way by some of the characters or through some superfluous scene. watch it once, though, it's not bad at all.

I was very disappointed with this film. Nothing that happens makes any sense. Even the other reviews here mention that the plot is not believable and that the production values are poor. I was expecting to see the beautiful scenery of Brazil and Portugal, but everything looks washed out and grainy.While the acting was good, it was wasted on the go-nowhere story. And as with Midnight, by the same director, the "twist" ending simply makes the whole story pointless. Why did they make this movie? I have no idea.

This existential thriller, in Portuguese with English subtitles, is a modern version of the American filmes noires of the 40s, complete with a surprise twist at the end. It is riveting from beginning to end. My only criticism is its poor production values. The film looks cheaply made, and it probably was, so the black and white cinematography is vastly inferior to that of Godard in Vivre Sa Vie, to cite another film noir of more than 30 years earlier. Most maddening of all, the subtitles are often hard to read. When will filmmakers learn and provide yellow subtitles so that they can be read against a white background. I'd give this an 8 overall, although with better production values it could have been higher.