It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Some who love this film will probably give me some "not helpful" votes for this review because I think this film isn't for most people. However, I really feel I must warn everyone up front that this movie, though well made, is also very unpleasant and probably NOT a film for most people--particularly not for kids and those who dislike very violent films.The main character is at first pretty likable. He very reluctantly kills someone and feels awful about it. However, inexplicably, instead of being punished, he's congratulated and given present by his neighbors. It seemed the victim was a thug and the police seemed unable or unwilling to deal with him. Because of this positive notoriety, the "nice guy" is then approached to kill more "bad people"--as he'd be doing the community a favor and making a few bucks in the process! However, because he is still, at heart, a decent guy, he begins using drugs to cope with the guilt and very quickly the man isn't nice at all and the line between him and his targets becomes very blurred until he is the sort of person that people would pay someone to kill.It's a very good film about the effects of violence on the perpetrator and it's very interesting to see him lose his soul. However, remember that this is a very violent film. There is a lot of blood, though it didn't seem especially gratuitous--but after all, the film is about contract killings. Also, the acting, writing and production were all very good.This film is set in Brazil and it's yet another film that the Brazilian Tourist Board probably wishes they could make disappear! That's because many of the recent films from this nation that have made it to America have painted a horrific picture about life in their big cities (especially Rio and Sao Paulo). CITY OF GOD is about drug lords and lawlessness that control the poor sections of town. CENTRAL STATION is about the homelessness problem and urban violence. And, MAN OF THE YEAR is about an assassin. Talk about scaring away tourism!! I recently talked with a man from Brazil at length about these films and he swore that this is NOT how most of the country is--it IS safe and lawlessness isn't everywhere. However, after seeing these three films I am still pretty wary about visiting this beautiful nation.Overall--recommended with some reservations.

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro! One of the most beautiful cities in the world and a place where social dissimilarities are completely absurd and out of control, at the same time!… In this city, you can easily find every kind of people, from the most wealthy to the worst scum! This film is just about that! It's a thriller/drama which reveals these social differences and the power of the higher classes' over the lower, through money and corruption… It does a very good social critic to Brazilian society (in spite of some almost funny and ridiculous ideas, like that "killers company" they created in the film! As far as I know it works in gangs! A business company created out of a gang can only be a joke! Except if we talk about mafia, of course…) and has some credible and well made characters. I also enjoyed the fact of the director describe one other curious reality in Brazil: it's a country which has a huge and almost uncontrollable criminality, but, at the same time, it's profoundly religious! Especially in big cities like São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro you can easy find, crossing the same street, an aberrant criminal (a killer, like the main character of this movie, which kills people for money) and a devoted guy which is going to church to pray to Jesus to salve his soul!

In Baixada Fluminense, in the State of Rio de Janeiro and in the periphery of the City of Rio de Janeiro, Máiquel (Murilo Benício) is a loser, who believes that God wants to f*** him and that life cannot be controlled, like a flow of a river. He loses a soccer bet with his friends and has to dye his hair blond, using the services of the gorgeous hairdresser Cledir (Cláudia Abreu). In the night, when he goes to a small bar dating Cledir to show his friend the payment of the bet and his new beautiful girlfriend, the criminal Suel (Wagner Moura) laugh him. Máiquel becomes upset and challenge Suel to a duel. On the next day, Máiquel shoots and kills Suel, and becomes famous in the neighborhood as a vigilante. The fifteen years old mistress of Suel, Érica (Natália Lage) moves to his apartment and Máiquel becomes a sensation in the community where he lives. His fame of hero reaches the upper class dentist Dr. Carvalho (Jóge Dória), who hires Máiquel to kill the man who raped his seventeen years old daughter Gabriela (Mariana Ximenes). Meanwhile, Cledir gets pregnant and marries Máiquel. This is the beginning of his successful career of killer. In the end, Máiquel believes that the are two options for like: let it go, like a flow of a river, or use reins and ride it like a horse.It seems that the success of 'Cidade de Deus' gave enough courage to other directors to expose to the world the underground life in the periphery and slums of the big Brazilian cities. 'O Homem do Ano' is based on a successful book of Patrícia Melo called 'O Matador' ('The Killer'). In the book, the story takes place in the periphery of São Paulo, but once the reality in the periphery of Rio de Janeiro is the same and due to geographical reasons, the story was transposed to the Baixada Fluminense, one of the most violent places in Brazil. Its narration in off by Máiquel recalls a film-noir. The story has most of the components of the popular and cheap Brazilian newspapers: the common murders and execution by vigilantes in the periphery of the Brazilian big cities and the religious fanaticism of the hopeless low classes. The middle and upper classes passively accepts this fearful way of life. Most of the characters in this movie represents a great segment of our society, where in some weekends can show more than seventy deaths of 'anonymous and common persons' only in Baixada Fluminense. The movie is never corny, there is no exaggeration in the situations and is based on the worst present problem of our society, the violence. Lack of education, corruption, impunity, lack of employment, very low salaries and life conditions, lack of perspective in life, lack of security, hypocrisy of the upper classes, all of these components in minor or greater proportions, result in the increasing violence showed in movies like 'O Homem do Ano', 'Cidade de Deus', 'Cidade dos Homens' and other sad examples of Brazilian society. Just as a curiosity, Cláudia Abreu has a daughter (Maria) with the director José Henrique Fonseca, who is son of the writer Rubem Fonseca. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): 'O Homem do Ano' ('The Man of the Year')

I'm not sure just where in the USA this Brazilian film has been released but I'm grateful that it came to my small city...I saw "City of God" and was mesmerized by its raw power and its characters struggling with their sordid lives of hopelessness. But "The Man of the Year" I had to see twice. Everything about this film appealed to me. Murilo Benicio as Maiquel is nothing less than brilliant as a quiet middle class loser - vain, smug, angry, brooding, thoughtful, remorseful, duped, and with a special fondness for a baby pig that is handed him as a gift. Many twists and turns of fate cause his life to take on dimensions similar to a Greek tragedy. The two women in his life are equally well-cast, along with just about everyone in the entire film. Maiquel struggles with two jealous women, life-long friendships, and along with his new job as a hit-man, he has more than enough to keep him brooding, on edge, questioning his actions, his fate. I could sense his desperation in every scene. And always, you empathize with him.What made this movie especially powerful for me was the way it was filmed. I read that it is the first movie of director Jose Enrique Fonseca - this man has a real future! The beginning panorama of Rio at night, Murilo's apartment and the pet shop, the wedding, a dose of religion, the final round of killings, the Rave - these and other scenes were filmed with such beauty and panache, propelling the plot with momentum, vigor, color, even tenderness as the Murilo's life changes bigtime. There are touches of humor - being in the dentist's chair, bathing a baby pig, ranting about the pitfalls of marriage. The musical score added immensely to the film, and the camera angles and overall cinematography were expert.Here's to filmmakers from Brazil, Mexico, and other countries in Central and South America! I hope this film has a wide release, it deserves it.