Lucio Flavio

A crime film set in Brazil in the 1970s. Lúcio Flávio robs banks. Young, fast, showy, and the newspapers write about him. He is caught and escapes. Then he is caught again and escapes again; the cycle makes him famous. But there is something behind it. Some of the robberies are carried out jointly with police and the take is shared. The arrangement breaks down. When Lúcio refuses to pay his share his own partners mark him. From there the film runs two lines side by side. The escapes and robberies on one, the organisation inside the police on the other. That organisation has a name. The Death Squad kills, leaves bodies, and presents it as a cleaning up. Lúcio decides to talk from prison. He gives names to journalists and says what he knows. What the narrative is interested in is not robbery but a boundary: the film asks where the distinction between criminal and police ends, and gives an answer. The narrative is fast and dirty. Handheld camera, real locations, crowded prison wings and streets at night. Lúcio is not presented as a hero. He talks in order to save himself and the film does not hide it. The source is José Louzeiro's book; the author worked on the screenplay and the story comes from a real person. The production was a large box office success in Brazil. Because it described police violence directly while the country was under military rule, the director received death threats the following year. Reginaldo Faria, Ana Maria Magalhães and Paulo César Peréio are in the cast. Héctor Babenco directed and co-wrote. Who it is for: anyone who likes political crime cinema of the 1970s and Latin American film. Who it is not for: anyone looking for an orderly narrative; the film cuts fast, carries many characters, and does not soften its violence.