Leandro Firmino

Zé Pequeno is frightening, and Leandro Firmino gives him none of the dignity that screen criminals so often receive. His work in City of God (2002) earns our high regard because the character remains recognisably human without becoming someone to admire. We were disturbed by the sense that this brutal man might have had an ordinary life. Firmino makes that possibility credible, which makes the violence harder to bear. A less convincing performance would let us dismiss him and get on with enjoying the action.

Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund give him valuable company. Alexandre Rodrigues supplies a human scale as Buscapé, and Phellipe Haagensen brings warmth to Bené. Their performances allow humour and tenderness into the film without making its brutality seem less severe. The contrast with Bené helps keep Zé Pequeno’s menace from becoming the only quality we remember in these people. Our reservation is that the cutting and music sometimes make violence more exciting than the suffering warrants; even acting this persuasive cannot remove that problem.

Being so convincing had consequences for the parts he was offered. Firmino faced typecasting after City of God, then played Cirino in Cafundó (2005) as a deliberate test of his ability to work away from Zé Pequeno. That choice matters more to our view of his career than a simple count of further criminal roles would. Later work has taken him into both dramatic and lighter television parts, alongside a return to crime material as Gilmar in Impuros (2018).

The risk in judging him chiefly through Zé Pequeno is that the performance can become a demand: be that frightening again. We are interested in what happens when he is allowed to be less threatening, and his move into lighter parts gives us reason to look beyond the familiar role. Our strongest recommendation remains City of God, despite the film’s occasional willingness to make brutality thrilling. Start there, but do not mistake it for an instruction about what he should play next.