O Menino da Porteira

This is the story of a small and isolated cattle farming community in a remote part of Brazil, in the first half of the 20th century. A roaming cowboy befriends the very young son of one of the small cattle farmers; the boy sees him as a hero. But all is not well in the community. The mayor has a financial stranglehold on the other cattle breeders by forcing them to sell their cattle through him to the abattoir. When the farmers revolt against this, there are dire consequences... The cowboy protagonist, too, unwillingly gets involved in the strife.

It is a rather simple story, with, unfortunately, a predictable ending. Acting is slightly above average, whilst I found the cinematography to be quite good. My biggest criticism against the film is the excessive singing of cowboy songs, guitar in hand. Give them half a chance and they sing, ad nauseam. The syrupy songs detract quite seriously from the film. The copy of the film I saw had subtitles in the worst slangy kind of a-la-American cowboy-English. It may work for a film shot on a ranch in the south of the US, but in this Brazilian film it is totally inappropriate.

My verdict? This is a somewhat interesting but flawed film. I would not go out of my way to find it. 5/10.