Building an indictment of the media, the police, and the provincial governor for placing self-interest above saving lives, Bus 174 opens out from the people directly involved in the incident to an examination of institutionalized poverty.

A tense documentary with multiple layers of meaning.

Padilha allows neither easy answers nor ironic commentary, producing on both sides of the conflict a world of inconsolable grief.

Bus 174 is too long because the filmmakers are too timid about making a frontal attack on Brazilian society. Detail becomes a substitute for an open indictment.