3 Act Plot Style: City of God

In the first act Rocket, and the main characters are introduced as well as the backstory to how the crime that plagued the city of God had started. The escalating action is the showing of the the robbery at the motel and the following hunt for the "tender trio" who were the boys who committed the crimes. The plot point of Act I is when you see the 3 boys of the "tender trio" meet their demise as well as the viewer finding out that a younger brother, Lil Dice, committed all the acts of violence at the hotel that night.

The second act begins to develop the take over of the crime industry by Lil Dice who has now changed his name to Lil Ze. This act begins to establish the drug culture of the city and how the once young hoodlums have began to take over. The majority of the plot that occurs in this act details how Lil Ze took over all of the other drug rackets except the one organized by a man named Carrot because a friend of Lil Ze's helps keep the peace. The plot point of this act is when Benny, the one who keeps the peace dies and Lil Ze decides to kill a member of his drug racket who hasn't paid him back yet. This causes the brother of the recently deceased, Knockout Ned an ex-marine, to enter the escalating war.

The third act consists of Carrot's gang and Lil Ze's gang preparing for the evident war. This is also when the main character Rocket achieve's his goal of being a photographer because no other photojournalist has been able to get into the City of God in order to take pictures. He then takes pictures for the big newspaper of Rio de Janero of the escalating gang violence in the City of God. The final climax of the movie is when Carrot's forces and Lil Ze's forces engage in an all out gun battle in the streets, which is captured by Rocket. Many of the gang members on both sides are killed and Rocket also captures Governmental corruption that was backing much of the gang's forces the entire time. The movie ends with Rocket becoming famous for his photos and what happened to the rest of the living main characters.