Four Days in September (1997)

Bruno Barreto's very fine Brazilian docudrama Four Days in September is driven by a fantastic ambivalence. In 1969, a ragtag group of middle-class revolutionaries, incensed at the military crackdown on civil rights, kidnap the U.S. ambassador in Rio de Janeiro and demand, in exchange, the release of 15 political prisoners. In the largest sense, the terrorists are justified, but they're also arrogant and myopic (at times, they rival the Symbionese Liberation Army for sheer hapless bravado). As the ambassador, Alan Arkin has a stoic elegance. A-