BUS 174 A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2003 David N. Butterworth
***1/2 (out of ****)
When you come to understand Sandro do Nascimento's life, you wonder how it could have ended any other way.
Sandro grew up in the favelas, the slums of Rio de Janeiro. He never knew his father and, as a youth, witnessed the stabbing death of his mother by three armed robbers. Like many kids his age from broken or abused households, Sandro hits the streets, stealing and drugging to survive. A survivor of the Candelária massacre, in which police beat and killed seven street kids while they slept, Sandro finds himself in and out of jail, finally having his fifteen minutes of fame when a bus he holds up (presumably to steal some quick cash to buy cocaine) is quickly surrounded by police and camera crews and turns into a four-hour standoff that ends in tragedy, broadcast live on Brazilian television.
The footage is remarkable, as is the police's inept handling of the situation. They fail to cordon off the area, so that virtually anyone is free to walk right up to the bus; they fail to bring any kind of communication devices to the scene, so that coordination with the assembled SWAT team has to be done by hand gestures; they fail to take out Sandro when they have more than ample opportunities to do so (the governor forbids it); and they botch the ending.
The incident became the highest rated event in Brazilian TV history and it's easy to see why. And, by the time José Padilha and Felipe Lacerda's captivating documentary "Bus 174" ("Ônibus 174") has run its course, using interviews with family members, social workers, former street kids, and officials involved in the June 12, 2000 incident in Jardim Botânico, the reasons why--as the news footage unfolds before our incredulous eyes--become perfectly clear.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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