FANS of Brazilian classic City of God had better make way for Elite Squad (Tropa De Elite), another incendiary look at crime in Rio de Janeiro as seen through the eyes of the police.

The film promises to offer an intense and astonishing look at Rio de Janeiro’s notorious favelas, the volatile slums on the edge of the city. Set in 1997, it presents an intimate look at the city’s vast and intricate web of corruption.

Drug trafficking militias have virtual control within the favelas while the police run their criminal enterprises outside. The elite BOPE force (State Police Special Operations Battalion) combats drug trafficking but keeping order has its price and their actions make it difficult to distinguish right from wrong and justice from revenge.

At the centre of this mess is BOPE Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura), a man facing a crisis: in addition to the pressures of fighting within war zones, the Captain must find and train his own replacement so he can escape the day to day violence and be close to his wife who is about to give birth to their first child.

Two of the force’s newest recruits, Neto (Caio Junqueira) and Matias (André Ramiro), are childhood friends: one is quick on the trigger to maintain order and the other refuses to compromise his ideals. Together they are the perfect replacement. Alone they may not have what it takes to survive.

Directed by José Padilha, (of Bus 174 fame) and written by Padilha, Academy Award® nominated writer Bráulio Mantovani (City Of God) and Rodrigo Pimentel, comes the controversial film Elite Squad. It is based on accounts from Pimentel’s 19 years as a military police officer and BOPE Captain and because of this, it has already attracted a lot of controversy.

In Brazil, Elite Squad became one of the most popular movies in history. According to DataFolha, 77% of São Paulo residents knew about it, while word of mouth was also extremely good with 80% of the people rating the movie as excellent or good according to the same company.

A lot of the awareness stemmed from the fact that in August 2007, prior to its release, a preliminary cut was leaked and made available for download on the internet.

The cut resulted in one person being fired and a criminal investigation but it was estimated that more than 11.5 million people had seen the leaked version ahead of its release. And this subsequently landed director Padilha in trouble with the authorities, who threatened to censure the film, block its release, and arrest him unless he gave up the names of the BOPE officers he’d interviewed as part of his research.

Padilha even had to go to court to secure the film’s release and held firm against the authorities, vowing to return to Brazil to make another film based on the corruption that exists in Rio.

He has also been snapped up by American distributor Warner Bros to make a film about the tri-border frontier between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, which is rife with drugs and smuggling. It will be a fictional account in the same style as Elite Squad and could well establish the director on the world stage.

Elite Squad opens in UK cinemas in August. Watch the trailer

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