The real City of God was a slum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro where the government moved all the poor and homeless to get them as far away from the post card beauty of the city center. City of God became a cauldron of youth gang violence where life had no value. City Of God tells the story of Rocket and the violence of the ghetto as seen through the eyes of his camera lens. Told with a frenetic pace and an almost unrelenting brutality City Of God was no place for the feeble.

Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) is an aspiring photojournalist and right at the beginning of the film is caught in the middle of a standoff between gang members and police. The film then moves back in time to Rocket's childhood spent growing up in the City of God. City Of God is told Pulp Fiction style, with the movie book-ended with scenes that tell their own story but are all interconnected with some later scenes doubling back and explaining earlier scenes. Scenes of violence are gruesome but never exaggerated to give the film a realistic feel. Many of the actors weren't professional actors but actual residents of City of God adding to the documentary feel of the picture.

Without over-dramatizing the characters or their situations, director Fernando Meirelles treats his characters as tragic figures that have no choice but to turn to crime in City Of God. City Of God is a document of the gangs that plagued the slums of Rio back in the 60's and 70's with enough violence and witty storytelling to hook even the non-subtitle-reading moviegoer.