4 /10

This movie cost $16M BRL (about $4.7M USD). This may not sound like much money by Hollywood standards, but it's a lot of cash in the Brazilian film industry. City of God, one of the best Brazilian films of all time, cost $3.3M USD.



And the best they could do with all that money was to make a good movie on some points but horrible on everything else. Cinematography is quite good, not at the same level of Roger Deakins or Vittorio Storaro, but fair enough. Historical reenactment is very well done; sets, cars, clothes, the best aspect of the film by far. But the good points end here.



The plot is simply horrible, self-indulgent, confused, manichaean. The dialogs are on the same level as The Room, some useless anecdotes that have no need to be in the script could have been cut, certain facts that should have been worked out more carefully are narrated in a hurry. I'm not a fan of Mr. Macedo and his church, but I still think the screenwriter could have written a way better story about his life.



The cast have some good names: Petrônio Gontijo, Beth Goulart, Dalton Vigh and Arthur Kohl do the job well done, but the rest is a bunch of awful actors/actresses. They could had get a much better overall cast with the massive amount of money they had.



This prove one thing: money is not all you need to make a great movie. If you are not able to attract talent, all the money will be wasted.