State of Fear (now on Netflix) is as action-packed a movie as you’ll see all year. Pedro Morelli directs, spinning/continuing the Sao Paolo set series he created, Brotherhoodwhich premiered on Netflix in 2019 and wrapped in 2022 for a second season. He brings back his lead, Naruna Costa, as Cristina Ferreira, a straightforward lawyer who finds herself caught between the corrupt police and the Brotherhood, a powerful criminal group led by her brother Edson, played again by Seu Jorge (in retrospect, since the character died at the end of the series). The film wraps up character arcs and introduces new ones – in another film or series perhaps? – but that all feels part of the immediacy of Morelli’s virtuoso action sequences.
Idea: Should we sympathize with the community police of Sao Paolo when the Brotherhood is waging an unending war against them, suddenly and unspoken, with bombs and an endless hail of bullets? Brotherhood show us how evil and corrupt they are, but the invaders are as committed to atrocities as they are. Well, the answer is far from cut and dried: We’re inside the police station when the attack begins – beating the policeman’s wife in the shower. Explosions rang out, glass shattered, balls exploded, bullets tore flesh. Indeed, they rushed to different places and got into a car, a police car, these police cars were identified by members of the Brotherhood with M-16s on motorcycles, they left the station crying in pain in the back seat and at one point pointed a revolver outside the window to draw safe blood to draw blood. and after about 10 minutes, a long unbroken shot ends with a plot: the title card.
Hold on to that feeling of (temporary) relief. The context of the previous scene reveals that 10 years have passed since Edson (Jorge, perhaps best known to American viewers from America. Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) died. Not only has the Brotherhood started civil wars, but it is also the cause of a number of organized riots, occurring simultaneously. Jump to TWO DAYS BEFORE. Cristina has officially chosen a side. Now he’s a Counselor, working on an official-not-a-crime-but-a-real-crime program in an unapologetic-for-crime organization, labeling its actions as “justice.” Moral gray areas – you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them, right? He even joins a wedding visit with the Brotherhood’s current leader, Ivan (Lee Taylor). He then returns home to his swank manse, where he raises his rebellious young niece Elisa (Camilla Damiao), Edson’s orphaned daughter. Elisa is rebellious in the sense that she is against the violence in the city that it defines. Perhaps it’s no surprise that he and Cristina are always butting heads.
Elisa throws her boyfriend on the back of her motorcycle and cries her ass off in the city until two policemen, Anselmo (Enio Cavalcante) and Borges (David Santos), pull them over. Yes, they are bombshells who threaten children with bribes. He thinks naming pops will help him, but they see dollar signs and kidnap him, holding him to ransom. A desperate Cristina goes to the Brotherhood for help but they’re all at odds because their imprisoned leaders are being rounded up and moved to a maximum security prison, so they orchestrate riots and, eventually, a direct attack to kill-any cop. The latter explodes when Cristina tries to pay the ransom, messing around. Borges throws Elisa in the car and drives off, prompting Cristina to hunt her down, which is easier said than done, especially when the city is a very violent traffic jam. But no one told Cristina I won’t done.
What Movies Will They Remind You Of? I can’t help but think of the saga of Fernando Mereilles’ favela God’s house (trivia: Morelli worked with Mereilles previously, co-directing the making of the documentary Blindness) crossed with the operatic virtuoso epic of Romain Gavras Athena.
Performances to Watch: It’s short and laid back, but Jorge shows the complex emotional interplay in a moving, revealing sequence between Edson and Elisa (Yetunde Hammed).
Sex and Skin: Nothing.
Ours: State of Fear he pulls no punches. There is no one. Morelli and Julia Furrer take an arc that almost works in a classic Greek tragedy, with allegorical narratives, including the heartbeat of the finale (which doesn’t feel too far from Mereilles’ feelings). The film trades in great action, depicting birth as an act of violence, and death, even more so. The film finds difficult moments, with a broad, thematic narrative featuring characters of average depth – sometimes feeling like they represent ideas rather than fleshed-out people – working in gray areas that spread like smoke from an unquenchable flame.
Morelli walks a tightrope, showing extreme violence as a form of criticism. There is no glorification here – violence is equally evil and merciless, and if it doesn’t destroy lives, it destroys souls. He complicates this idea by presenting Elisa as a prominent person who preaches non-violence, and then puts her in situations that force her hand. Contrast that with the use of Borges’s mother (Marcelia Cartaxo) to embody the behavior of a corrupt policeman, an obnoxious cretin and a mamma’s boy, lonely and depressed, a sad man’s child. Again, this is a world without absolutes.
But such dynamics are not the first artist of it State of Fear. Morelli couches all this sweaty moral frustration within the framework of a stomping-to-the-metal action film. A few intense, intricately choreographed set pieces show the director’s passion for long, unbroken, highly choreographed shots that make full use of the environment – a police raid on a police station, a shadowy night chase and a shootout in a deserted train station, Cristina peeking through the doors and windows of a burglary in her neighborhood. Morelli successfully develops and captures tension, amplifying it with sound design and patient camera work.
State of Fear it effectively establishes the macro context and makes sharp use of the microdramas within it. Sometimes, the first one feels undernourished, as if it needs another movie (one might say that the movie was taken as a third season Brotherhoodand reduced to 103 minutes). But with just a “throwback” of the TV series, this is a surprisingly and physically strong film that is emotionally and movingly delivered with clever, sometimes high-tech, and visually driven storytelling.
Our Phone: State of Fear it tends to be an underrated action movie. So thanks, dammit! It’s already spread.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog lied once.
