delfino-vanessa I was just 10 years old when i saw all this happening on television. I was watching a movie and suddenly, it was interrupted. I couldn't understand very well what was going on but when I realized all TV channels stopped their programming to show this I just didn't know what to think.I have watched the movie 2 days ago. Because I can remember the occurred so vividly in my mind, even I being very young at the time, I cried at the end. As I said I didn't know what to think at the time but now I feel sorry for Sandro, for everything that he had passed through and that culminated in the hijack.The movie is very realistic at some points, like when Sandro is inside the bus: for it was like all was happening again, I was watching saying "Now he'll do this, she'll do that", so well I could remember; but it fails in another points. There are many historic mistakes: The "Candelária slaughter" occurred in 1993, not in 2000; Sandro didn't see his mother when she is already dead: he saw her being decapitated when he was 6; and he never was mistaken by another boy because the other boy, Alessandro, didn't exist (ok, this was something created by the writer to become the story more dramatic, but it wasn't necessary since Sandro's story is dramatic for itself).I liked the movie but for those who doesn't know the whole story, since the beginning, it may be difficult to understand why some things happened.

Chris_Docker The number 174 bus may well forever be remembered as the most famous hi-jack in Brasil. National television gave it hours of live coverage. Rio de Janeiro police desperately tried to free hostages. The ordeal was imprinted on the national psyche, much the way 9/11 is on America's. First a documentary, and now this major film.I did once experience an attempted hi-jack in Brasil. Coming off a slip road from Presidente Vargas. The same freeway where part of this film is located. About twenty young kids, none of them more than twelve years old, charge our fast-moving vehicle. They run head-on towards us in a v-formation, attempting to make the bus brake hard. Or crash. It's 2am. I'm on my way back to the apartment after late night carousing. Passengers rise in their seats. Transfixed. We wait to see what the driver will do. Instead of stopping, he accelerates towards the children. It resembles a game of dare, but with deadly intent. The phalanx of charging youngsters scatters at the very last minute. Sighs of relief. If he had stopped, the chances of being robbed at gunpoint would have been high.The famous 174 incident ended in bloodshed. It was made into the documentary, Onibus 174, which did rather well, and also inspired this film. Last Stop 174, a feature thriller that culminates in the same event, has much to live up to.Our action starts with Alessandro, rudely ripped from his mother's breast (quite literally). The gangsters that grab him violently are owed money by his coke-sniffing mama. Young Alessandro (Sandro for short) is soon old enough to wield a gun. His life soon intertwines with another boy called Sandro as they grow up on the streets, doing coke and doing time. They survive by armed robbery and dealing drugs. A close shave with an infamous street massacre, just off Presidente Vargas (in Rio's city centre), sees several children gunned down. Between the bloodbath of juveniles and the bus hi-jack, weave tales of maternal longing, desperate glue-sniffing, jailbreak and prostitution. Meanwhile, Church and NGOs fight to save souls among such unworthy miscreants.As a straightforward action movie, Last Stop 174 is gritty and entertaining. The pace doesn't let up, and the central characters give a convincing demonstration of Brasil's brand of smooth-talking hustlers. But does the film have more to it than just box office returns? Our young actors do well - on many an occasion - but at other times seem noticeably stretched. It seems a good enough story; yet is really a collection of interlocking pieces rather than a smoothly flowing whole. The actual hijack is a relatively short segment at the end of the film - and it left me a little underwhelmed. I had been very much looking forward to Last Stop 174. Yet on viewing, I felt it had little new to say. In fact, very little to say at all. Additionally, my sympathies are moving towards some of the more art-house –type directors from Brasil. Ones that deplore the way their multifaceted country is depicted as a violent, third-world outback.You could imagine the anger if the bulk of mainstream film from the UK, for instance, portrayed nothing but Trainspotting and underbellies of drug orgies and football violence. The Rio city centre carnage should be shocking - since such things normally only happen, when they do happen, in underprivileged favelas, the slums of Brasil. Not in the midst of a teeming financial district. But this film sadly gives us no context to draw such contrasts. We see mostly only slum boys, sleeping on pavements and selling their heavily-cut coke. Characters outside their world of the dispossessed have little more than walk-on parts.The plot is overcomplicated by having two boys of similar names. And there is confusion rather than mystery over who is the real mother. The mishmash result is lack of momentum for the main storyline. This should be Sandro's boyhood, culminating in a botched robbery and hijack of bus 174.Not that there aren't fascinating details. Con-tricks used to steal a Copacabana woman's handbag. Or an ingenious ruse for the mass egress from prison, when they scam and overpower guards and staff. Earlier, Sandro loses his virginity at a tender age. To a prostitute he promptly falls in love with. Patchy performances of inspired intensity outweigh an attempt at a sustained ensemble endeavour. From the opening scenes (which have genuine shock value), the drive towards a finale is uneven at best. The film's target audience is unclear, being too well-trodden for many mainstream viewers and lacking the subtlety demanded by art-house crowds. Last Stop 174, if not quite grinding to a halt, never manages to make a smooth transition through its gears.

JavierAndres92 I was recommended to see this movie. I didn't know that this movie was the Brazilian choice for the Oscars for Best Foreign Film and although it wasn't even nominates is still a very good movie. I say this because it tells a very hard story and it entertains you all the time. The movie relies on a very good direction, photography, music, good dialogs, but as I said what makes the movie likable is that is very entertaining and catches you in every moment, from the beginning to the end. Besides the acting is really good and realist, which is another strong point for the movie. Although there's no hero in this movie the characters are kind of lovable. One thing that I didn't fully understood is why do they present the two kids in the beginning if they are going to tell with more importance the story of only one of them, I understand that is for knowing their past and it helps to understand a lot, but one of the boys doesn't get the same importance of the other. And tough in the end, in the part of the bus assault there are some things rushed and that doesn't fit well, it's very good and engaging. I don't know what else to say, it is simply a very good movie that tells the life story of two children from the favelas of Rio De Janeiro and it's very good to see good stories about this subjects.

Marco Aurelio A chronicle of a bus hijacking in Rio, Brazil so as the kid life. It occurred on June 12,2000. Just watched this movie here in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. It is about a poor boy (Sandro) who hijacks a bus and takes few hostages only in order to be famous and due he's high. So everyone must watch it. It's a portrait about an unfortunate guy who didn't have another choice in life except being a thief. Otherwise, he'd die. In other words, he didn't have a chance to live honestly. The movie has the usual and expected sad ending. Michel Gomes is the main actor who did a great work, besides some of other unknown actors. Maybe it could be a good lesson for those who intends to track a wrong way. As a matter of fact, Sandro had tried to have a better life but it seems destiny or fate did not allow him. In short, it happens nowadays in every country where poverty turns to a plague. Again: good direction and good actors. I'm sure an awarding is coming to this very film!