Barring the Marvel franchise films, we don’t often see sequels being posted about here. A good sequel needs to be something other than just more of the same yet it also needs to capture the spirit of the original. That’s a tough balance to pull off, especially since so many sequels, heady off the success of the first film blow their greatly increased budget off in dumb ways. This is one reason why seeing the success of this sequel to Elite Squad is so gratifying. Commercially it did better than the first wildly popular film, but what is really surprising is that it may, from a critical point of view, be an even better film than its predecessor.
Nearly a decade after the events of the first film, we see that Roberto Nascimento is still with BOPE. His wife, after giving birth to their son, has divorced him and has married a human rights activist. Things turn bloody when BOPE is called in to quell a prison riot and we see that the previously idealistic André Matias is more bloodthirsty than ever. The state government wants to fire Nascimento for the debacle but he turns out to be incredibly popular with the general public. So while he is removed from BOPE, he is named Subsecretary of Intelligence, turning in his uniform for a suit and tie instead. He uses his influence to massively increase BOPE’s funding, raising troop numbers and giving them shiny new equipment including armored cars and helicopters. This allows BOPE to run the drug traffickers out of the favelas. Nascimento expects this to cut down on police corruption as well but he turns out to be wrong. Realizing that they can make more money directly from the favelas themselves, they organize local militias that are ostensibly there to prevent the gangs from coming back but are in reality a massive protection racket. The state government goes along with this as the militias can help them get out the vote during election years.
With the primary antagonists now being crooked cops and politicians and the battleground being political influence and the legal system, The Enemy Within is lighter than the first film on the action scenes. What’s there however is still excellent, with the guns being accorded a kind of solidity that respects how dangerous they are. The other visual aspects of José Padilha’s direction are just as strong. I especially appreciated how the camera takes us from the haphazard stacks of the favelas to the more affluent areas of Rio de Janeiro and finally to the orderly planned spaces of Brasília. The huge success and cultural influence of the first film gave the director enough recognition that the authorities allowed him to film in places that would normally be off limits, including the real police headquarters and the real state congress building. Apparently he didn’t allow them to read the script so they thought he was going to film a story similar to the first one and didn’t realize that the new film was mainly going to be about politicians and corrupt police.
The film’s greatest strength lies in how it sketches out a plausible scenario tying the criminals, the police and the politicians together. It reminds me of The Wire, especially as it also shows the role of the media, both as a tool for the people to expose the evil deeds of the powerful but also as a platform for demagogues to gain power as politicians. As I watched this I continually wondered how much of this could be possibly true, so shocking is the casual manner that the police murder anybody who is inconvenient to them. The director insists in interviews such as this one that it’s all mostly true, which is really terrifying. One thing that is different in this film from The Wire is that violence is portrayed as an effective tool for all parties. Nascimento can only do what he does here because of his ties to BOPE and how they obey his orders even if he technically no longer has the authority to command them.
Still while this glorification of violence is still present, I loved how this film inverses the message of the previous one. The first Elite Squad didn’t shy away from showing how bloodthirsty and ruthless the BOPE are but ends with a suggestion that this is exactly what the city needs. This sequel however shows that respect for the rule of law and human rights aren’t meant to protect criminals. Even here in Malaysia, it’s easy to find people in places like the Lowyat forums who think that criminals should be dealt summary justice with little in the way of bureaucracy and procedures to stand in the way. What they don’t realize that these rules are really meant to prevent the police from using their monopoly on the use of force to rule over everyone else. Law-abiding citizens have as much to fear from an unchecked police force as criminals.
On top of it all, The Enemy Within also manages to provide a satisfying progression of Nascimento’s development arc with Matthias’ fate being the counterpoint. It’s rare to see an action hero character evolve like this, not just in his relationships with other characters but also in his view of society and his place in it. That’s why even though this one is arguably less trenchant as an action movie, it’s a more sophisticated and perhaps even more interesting film than the first one.