71
Metascore
18 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 91Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumEntertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumThe pace is quick, the violence is rough, and the visual style is documentary as Padilha hammers home his point: Someone is forever in the pocket of someone else as The System constantly adapts to protect itself.
- 88Slant MagazineDiego SemereneSlant MagazineDiego SemereneElite Squad: The Enemy Within is pure pedagogic bliss.
- 80EmpireEmpireA marked improvement on the first film, it's easy to see why this was such a smash in Brazil. Breathless, brutal and thrilling, it's a gut punch of an action movie.
- 80VarietyRobert KoehlerVarietyRobert KoehlerWhen this "Enemy Within" settles into key action sequences, such as a stunning nighttime ambush or a daytime battle against Fabio, it becomes wildly entertaining.
- 75IndieWireEric KohnIndieWireEric KohnPadilha channeled national frustrations into zeitgeist entertainment. The follow-up, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, has less success than the first installment in achieving that aim, but still keeps the snazzy combination of spectacle and polemics in check.
- Padilha's film has a witheringly low opinion of most people - the gangs are no better than animals, the regular police are gleefully corrupt, the liberal intellectuals are sanctimonious fools, and the politicians are only interested in protecting themselves.
- 70The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenThe carnage, although explicit and frequent, is not grotesquely overdone. But except for Mr. Moura's Nascimento, the movie doesn't have the same richness of characters. Psychologically he is the whole show; the rest are stereotypes.
- 60Village VoiceVillage VoiceWill test the ideological mettle of law-and-order conservatives and lefty peaceniks alike.
- 60New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanThe movie's intensity is given crucial depth via Moura's somber and unshowy performance.