"City of Men" is a feature film version of a blockbuster series that ran on Brazilian TV from 2002 to 2005. It is also a sequel of sorts to the earlier "City of God," an award-winning movie directed by Fernando Meirelles.<br /><br />Paul Morelli's "City of Men" focuses on Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) and Acerola (Douglas Silva), two honorable teens who are struggling to make a decent life for themselves in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. The former is searching for the father he's never known, while the latter is only beginning to learn what it means to be a father to his own son. Their personal story is set against the backdrop of a violent turf-war between two rival gangs that are battling it out for preeminence in the city.<br /><br />"City of Men" reveals its origins as a TV series in the novelistic approach it takes to storytelling and character development. From the beginning, we feel as if we have been thrust into the midst of a story "already in progress." With little explanatory background, the screenplay (by Elena Soarez) introduces us all at once to a multiplicity of characters, whose relationships with one another we are forced to pick up almost on the fly as it were. This allows us to become both an observer of and an active participant in the drama that unfolds.<br /><br />Certainly, one of the most important characters in the movie is the city itself, since it is this very environment of poverty, hopelessness and violence that, in large measure, determines the kinds of lives these people will lead and the types of futures they will have.<br /><br />Morelli's directorial style is up-close-and-personal in the more intimate moments, and vivid and exciting in the pulse-pounding "action" sequences. The sense of immediacy that he and cinematographer Adriano Goldman bring to the work acts as an effective counterweight to some of the more melodramatic elements that creep into the screenplay towards the end.<br /><br />With excellent performances and a surprising amount of optimism given its generally depressing milieu and setting, "City of Men" is a tale of friendship and adult responsibility that will move the spirit and touch the heart.