Elite Squad: The Enemy Within picks up thirteen years after the first film, with Lieutenant Colonel Nascimento now a state subsecretary. He faces a far bigger problem than a prison riot: corruption inside the very force he commands. The film turns its eye away from the streets and toward the politicians who use BOPE for their own gain.
Trailer, via Variance Films.
The Ambush and Its Aftermath
Nascimento is ambushed while leaving a hospital, his car sprayed with bullets. His voiceover traces the chain of events that brought him there. Four years earlier, he arrived at Bangu Penitentiary Complex to stop a riot led by Beirada. Captain André Matias, his protégé, disobeyed orders and shot Beirada, killing multiple inmates. That act sends Matias to the corrupted Military Police as a scapegoat, while Nascimento is promoted to undersecretary by Guaracy, the state secretary for public safety.
Nascimento’s Expansion of BOPE
The film follows Nascimento as he expands BOPE’s arsenal and personnel, giving it armored vehicles and a helicopter. He hopes that wiping out drug cartels will clean up the favelas and curb police corruption. Instead, the absence of drug dealing creates a vacuum. Corrupt officers like Major Rocha step in, forming a police militia that takes over communities through extortion.
The Actors’ Training
They treated us like real cops. No ‘I’m-too-important.’ I also had to say ‘No, sir. Yes, sir.’
That line comes from André Ramiro, who played Captain André Matias. He was trained by professionals from CATI-SWAT to give orders on screen, part of a regimen that included Jiu-Jitsu lessons for Wagner Moura from fighter Rickson Gracie. Every actor except Maria Ribeiro, who was pregnant, went through a training routine led by Fátima Toledo, plus a boot camp coordinated by security adviser Paulo Storani with BOPE members.
The Cast and Their Roles
The result shows in the performances. Wagner Moura returns as Nascimento, now forty with grayer hair. Irandhir Santos plays Diogo Fraga, the human rights activist who opposes Nascimento and becomes a state representative. Seu Jorge appears as Beirada, the convict behind the Bangu I uprising. Tainá Müller joins the cast as Clara, a journalist whose reporting puts Matias in jail and estranges him from Nascimento.
The Scope of the Film
The film’s ambition is larger than its predecessor’s. It moves from street-level violence to a full-scale examination of how politics corrupts law enforcement. That scope demands a steady hand, and José Padilha holds it together with tight direction and a script co-written with Bráulio Mantovani and Rodrigo Pimentel.
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is a dense, morally complex thriller that asks hard questions about power, loyalty and justice. It earns its reputation as one of the biggest films ever made in Brazil.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
