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Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
City Lights Pictures

7.1 based on 16 reviews Read critic reviews How did we calculate this? based on 6 votes Read user comments Rate this movie

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MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Manda Bala explores the cycles of violence that plague Brazil’s upper and lower economic classes in fits of rampant corruption and violent kidnappings. The film chronicles these cycles by utilizing highly personalized stories that reflect the growing truth about Brazil’s huge economic disparities – differences that cause violence on both sides of the spectrum. A frog farm connected to a corrupt politician and one of the most powerful men in Brazil; a kidnapping victim who had both her ears cut off before she was released to her parents; a wealthy plastic surgeon who pioneered the procedure used to reconstruct the ears of kidnapping victims; and a kidnapper who has watched many like him escape the poorest parts of Brazil for the wealthier Sao Paolo, where they terrorize the upper class with kidnappings, theft and murder. Manda Bala explores the various cottage industries cropping up in response to the violence and links these stories to weave a compelling narrative about what happens in a country where the rich and powerful steal from the poor, and in turn some of the poor terrorize the rich. (City Light Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Documentary
DIRECTED BY:	Jason Kohn
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: April 8, 2008  Theatrical: August 17, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	85 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Brazil / USA
LANGUAGE(S):	English / Portuguese

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

88

Premiere Glenn Kenny

As forceful as its title suggests, and sometimes unbelievably ballsy.

83

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

There's no denying its grip: It is lurid, fascinating, sickening, and eye-opening.

80

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

There’s no denying the sharpness of his (Jason Kohn) insights into a society that hasn’t so much collapsed as reconstituted itself around venality, profiteering and rage.

80

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Kohn’s gripping Manda Bala is the opposite of a high-school science doc. It’s a free-form portrait of a place--Brazil--with scary running motifs: kidnapping, mutilation, plastic surgery, bulletproofing, and frog farming.

80

Variety Scott Foundas

Crammed into a lively 85-minute package delivered with loads of dark humor and cinematic flair, this is a worthy winner of Sundance's Grand Jury prize for documentary.

80

Village Voice Michelle Orange

With an excess of excitable style, samba music, and heady, montage-driven metaphor that threatens to bury his film's key ideas, young-gun director Kohn--a New Yorker with South American roots--has clearly set out to make a splash. So far, he's succeeded.

80

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Gorgeous and terrifying.

80

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Edgy and provocative but with a weakness for sensationalistic footage.

75

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The title is Portuguese for "send a bullet" and the clever American tag line is "the rich steal from the poor; the poor steal the rich."

75

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Although it is never explicitly stated, Manda Bala essentially argues that when the middle class disappears, the rich and the poor end up feeding on each other, like the frogs that go cannibalistic at the frog farm that gives the movie its central metaphor.

70

Washington Post Philip Kennicott

The subject is huge and worthy, and the film makes a noble effort to embrace some of its complexity.

70

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

What the film does best is document the lengths to which people are going to protect themselves -- subcutaneous microchips for identification, ever-heavier armor for fancy cars.

63

Chicago Tribune Maureen M. Hart

By the end, despite the film’s beautiful cinematography, persuasive subjects and ironically upbeat soundtrack, we just feel bludgeoned.

60

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Instead of seriously investigating corruption, money laundering and the buying of politicians, Manda Bala would rather spend its time showing slimy brown frogs slithering over one another as they are dumped from one container into another.

50

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Scenes of harvested frogs provide an apt metaphor for Brazil's miserable have-nots, so apt that Kohn can't resist beating it to death.

42

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Manda Bala is exciting and stylish, and Kohn knows exactly what he wants the movie to say. But he makes most of his points in the first 10 minutes, with disgusting slow-motion frog footage and sound bites from social scientists pointing out how "corruption is what links all other crimes." The rest is just so much show.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it an8:
People are sluts for the camera, even in Brazil. The frog farmer has a lot of chutzpah, like any number of guys who believe they won't crack under the pressure of hardline questioning. Bottom line: people like to talk, even if they have something to hide. But men with hubris possess a feeling of invincibility, so they foolishly grant sit-down interviews like volunteers for firing squads. The frog farmer bears a passing resemblance to the sort of people that Errol Morris profiled in "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control". When the filmmaker loses interest in the agricultural aspect of his operations, the frog farmer asks the cameraman to stop shooting, after a question is posed to him about an alleged scandal that involved one of his friends. Right about then, the interviewer quietly slips off his gloves, and drops any pretense that he's shooting a quirky character profile about a colorful person's idiosyncratic obsession(the subject of Morris' documentary). The camera rolls on. The frog farmer looks a little nervous. Some will argue that "Manda Bala" is a stylish op/ed piece like Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"(because the documentarian already had his mind made up about the subject), but the frog farmer's refusal to talk, backs up the prosecutor's claim that Jader Barbalho is more like a mafia don than a politician. This filmmaker scores a coup when he gets his subject to do an on-camera interview, although he won't talk about the frogs(the first rule of frog farm is- you do not talk about frog farm), which is better than Moore, who could never lure General Motors CEO Roger Smith in "Roger and Me". "Manda Bala" is exciting like a narrative film. It's better than Fernando Meirelles' "Cidade de deus", that's for sure.

Paul K. gave it a9:
Equally disturbing as it is fascinating. The information could have been presented in a more cohesive manner, especially the see saw of subtitles vs. language interpreters, but otherwise a well made doc.

Marlus F. gave it a10:
Manda Bala is an honest, accurate and courageous portrait that de-constructs the overrated Brazilian clichés (carnaval, women, soccer and samba). An eye-opening view of a society in a forced state of numbness and indifference before a surreal ultra violent reality and a non declared civil war. According to all international standards, Brazil is the most violent place in the solar system, with more them 45,000 murders per year and astonishing 630 cases of "flash kidnappings" per month only the the city of Sao Paulo. Kohn's initiative to bring these issues to the table give room to even more questions, specially concerning the middle class' struggle to survive and keep its physical integrity ans sanity between the clash of the extreme poor and the extreme rich layers of Brazilian society.

Alexandra gave it a9:
A very fascinating look at the Darwin-esque struggle between the very rich and the unimaginably poor in one of the world's most dangerous cities. Though the footage is gruesome at times, it does much to accentuate the brutality the people of Sao Paolo are faced with on a daily basis. The film linked all the stories together well; it exposes how the rich steal from the poor, and the poor seek vengeance on their oppressors. A very powerful, gripping, and well done documentary. I was completely captivated.

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