9/10
Thank my lucky horseshoe
7 February 2003
The year is 1969. Brazil is under a brutal military dictatorship. Political prisoners are being held and tortured. In order to get the junta to free some of their comrades, a group of ragtag "revolutionaries" kidnap the U.S. Ambassabor and threaten his life unless their demands are met.

Well-written and tense, the film ably demonstrates the flaws of people trying to fight fire with fire: "an eye for and eye". Alan Arkin is wonderful as the ambassador. His character gives incisive psychological sketches of his kidnappers: fervent and brooding; yearning and lost.

Fernanda Torres and Pedro Cardoso are marvelous as comrades who become lovers by their admittance of how really scared they are.

My subject line refers to a line in the script that aptly describes the bending of the political spectrum at its ends. I'm glad I found this movie.
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