Plot

After a prison riot, former-Captain Nascimento, now a high ranking security officer in Rio de Janeiro, is swept into a bloody political dispute that involves government officials and paramilitary groups.

After a bloody invasion of the BOPE in the High-Security Penitentiary Bangu 1 in Rio de Janeiro to control a rebellion of interns, the Lieutenant-Colonel Roberto Nascimento and the second in command Captain André Matias are accused by the Human Right Aids member Diogo Fraga of execution of prisoners. Matias is transferred to the corrupted Military Police and Nascimento is exonerated from the BOPE by the Governor. However, due to the increasing popularity of Nascimento, the Governor invites him to team-up with the intelligence area of the Secretary of Security. Along the years, Fraga, who is married with Nascimento's former wife, is elected State Representative and Nascimento's son Rafael has issues with his biological father. Meanwhile Nascimento and the BOPE expel the drug dealers from several slums but another enemy arises: the militia led by Major Rocha and supported by the Governor, the Secretary of Security and politicians interested in votes. Nascimento is manipulated to help this group, vanquishing the criminals in the slums and poor communities; then the corrupt group of police officers is free to exploit the poor population.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Robert Nascimento is back, and he has been promoted. Now a Lieutenant Colonel in the police his career is jeopardised by slanderous accusations. He is reassigned to working with state security. Now he has to deal with the worst types of criminals - politicians.—grantss

The movie starts with Roberto Nascimento (Wagner Moura) as a narrator, who tells his story how he fought the system of corrupted police officers, and also against the drug dealers, but this time, it had more influence on him than ever before, as his moves were actually helping the system. 13 years after the original movie, in medias res, Nascimento is shown leaving the hospital. A man talks to his voice-chatter informing his departure from a local bar. Soon after, Nascimento is shown driving along the road, and he is ambushed by two cars, and the gunmen repeatedly start to blaze his car with bullets. Nascimento remembers his life concludes that it would continue if not for events 4 yrs earlier.

4 years earlier, Nascimento is shown, now as a Lieutenant Colonel in BOPE, arriving at the Bangu I prison to settle a prison raid, and is shown the few officers being corruptly paid to be taken as the hostages by the drug cartels operating from inside the prison. Their leader, Beirada (Seu Jorge) quickly scouts the prison, killing and burning members of local rival gangs across the prison. BOPE corners them, but they hold back on Nascimento's orders as he wants Beirada to finish all the rival gangs before taking him down.

Beirada orders Nascimento to call Diogo Fraga (Irandhir Santos), a local History teacher, who always accuses BOPE of suppressing democratic rights of poor citizens. Fraga arrives, and orders Beirada to release the hostages. As soon as Fraga enters in, Nascimento's successor, Cpt. André Matias (André Ramiro), who led the group of commandos, flees in and Beirada immediately takes Fraga hostage. Matias pretends to lower his gun, but shoots Beirada, saving Fraga.

Afterwards, Fraga, mad about this, embarrasses Nascimento, Matias and the rest of the BOPE squad on the media for promising peace but delivering death. Nascimento is sacked from BOPE, but after he confronts the governor in the restaurant, the crowd starts to cheer around him. The governor promotes Nascimento to Deputy Secretary of Intelligence, but Matias is demoted to a Officer Cadet, under the lead of corrupt Cl. Fabio Barbosa (Milhem Cortaz). Nascimento promises Matias to settle his situation and goes to his supervisor about this to no avail. Matias goes to a journalist named Clara and gives her an interview about disregard of BOPE and the corruption of the governor, almost losing his job. Nascimento confronts Matias about this, and Matias calls him a traitor for taking his position in politics.

Nascimento is divorced, Rosane re-married to none-other than Fraga, and his son, Rafael, is scared of him because of his work, and Fraga keeps Nascimento away from his son. Nascimento lets this go during his work, and he uses his new position to improve BOPE into a police army, organizing dozens of raids across the Favelas, ordering armor trucks and a chopper for the team, raising it from 100 policemen to 350 heavy armed police officers divided into 16 tactical teams. Under his influence, BOPE frees the Favelas from drug dealers, and also uses the situation to lower the number of corrupt police officers. Nascimento's theory is that if drug dealers go out of business, they can't pay the cops, & if cops don't get paid, they would turn against each other.

Major Sandro Rocha, the lead corrupt boss of the Rio militia and also one of Fabio's men, confronts a few of the dealers. He only gets $500 from the dealers, saying that this is from the pirate TV cable. Rocha kills the rest of the dealers and devises a new plan; Instead of using the dealers as the middleman, he uses the Favelas and opens the business of money laundering and protection racket trades, earning his share in Favelas by providing internet, cable TV, banks, cafes, restaurants, every business and acts as a protection to them, taking big income. In the next 4 years, Rocha grows up into a powerful militia leader, killing competition, witnesses, business owners who refuse to pay. He grows his own corrupt army of militia in the Favelas, with BOPE unwillingly helping them by securing the Favelas from the drug dealers.

In present time, Rafael grew up and started working for Fraga. Fraga is now a politician. Rocha now controls many Favelas in Rio & now realizes that he controls an important commodity, votes. He deals with the governor to promise votes for money. He also realizes that for money he needs to control more Favelas. But all Favelas not controlled by Rocha are under drug dealers. He plans to use BOPE to clear them out & move in himself. The Governor & security secretary promise to help Rocha with his plan.

One day, several men raid the police station, stealing dozens of guns from the armory of a station inside a drug dealer-controlled Favela. The chief suspects that this could be militia, as they were using references that dealers don't use and they were wearing military boots, but Fabio assures the Secretary that these are the drug dealers, saying that he got this from a reliable source. Rocha also uses his power to bring Matias back into BOPE, weakening Nascimento's power. Nascimento records over 300 hours of phone calls with dealers, with evidence that the dealers know nothing about the guns, but the Secretary & Governor orders him to schedule the attack on the last Favela.

Nascimento plans the attack, but he is concerned about the corrupt officers. Matias devises a plan; He and rest of the BOPE team will arrive dressed as patrol officers and replace the corrupt officers in the police station. The next day, BOPE team arrives and attacks the dealers. They easily overpower the dealers. Dealers try to run across the station, expecting corrupt officers to let them pass, but Matias and the rest of the team arrive outside and wipe the remaining dealers. Just then, Fabio, Rocha and rest of the men arrive as backup, and the main dealer escapes through the alleyways, but Matias manages to subdue him. Matias tortures him for the information, but the dealer keeps saying that they didn't steal the guns.

Rocha, along with Fabio, arrives and immediately shoots the dealer in the chest, killing him. Matias orders the rest of the BOPE soldiers to carry away the dealer's body, and then he confronts Rocha. Matias tells Rocha that he could manage to get the information, as doubts about the guns being at the dealer's Favelas, and orders Rocha and Fabio to give him Fabio's source's name by the rest of the day. He storms off in anger, but Rocha shoots him in the back, murdering Matias. Fabio confronts Rocha about this, but Rocha orders his units to give them a 15-minute window, then reporting his death, and also assuring that he wasn't with Matias when he was killed.

Nascimento confronts Fabio on Matias' funeral, and he promises him that he will find the murderer. Nascimento uses his power to listen to calls from Fraga's phone, when he realizes through Rafael that Fraga knew about the militia being involved in the police station raid. Meanwhile, Clara the journalist tries to make a story, and goes into one of Rocha's Favelas to make a story about corrupt officers. She goes to an apartment, used by Rocha as his HQ, ran by an old lady to give her an interview, unaware that she has been paid by Rocha as an informant, and she makes a call to Rocha about this. He arrives with his men, killing the reporter and sexually assaulting and killing Clara. Before this she calls Fraga & tells him she found the Governor campaign reelection material in Rocha's HQ, proving the link.

Rocha takes Clara's phone and burns it, but not before hearing Fraga on the phone, realizing that she has been talking to Fraga, who is shocked by these events. Nascimento also hears this and records the data, taking it with him. Just after he leaves, the Secretary orders Fraga's phone to be wired, but he already realizes that Nascimento ordered this. Meanwhile, Nascimento desperately tries to call Rosane, and he waits at her apartment. Fraga, Rafael and Rosane arrive, and Nascimento tries to warn them about Rocha's orders, but two guys on a scooter arrive, performing a drive-by on Fraga's car, shooting Rafael. Nascimento shoots one of the men and leaves with the trio, rushing Rafael to the emergency room. Nascimento hands the recorded call with Clara to Fraga to use it to demand a congressional hearing into the militia-politico nexus.

The next night, after the surgery on Rafael (he had been shot in the kidney), he confronts Rosane, telling her to call him if she needs anything. The beginning of the movie is shown with Nascimento leaving the hospital. Just then, Rocha and his men arrive and try to kill Nascimento, but he already had a backup car behind him, with armed BOPE soldiers. He manages to defend himself from Rocha's men, who escape after a failed attack.

Nascimento takes his men and confronts the Secretary, beating him and threatening that he will kill him and the rest of his corrupt men if anything ever happens to his son. The next day, he shows up on the trial in Brasília that has been organized, and he testifies with Fraga for three long hours at the court, also regarding to dismiss BOPE.

In the aftermath, the governor is sentenced to a longtime sentence in prison, the Secretary is placed as the new governor, Fraga is still trying to enroll himself deeper in the politics, and many witnesses are killed so the militia officers can protect themselves. Rocha is also killed on Fabio's orders, with his body dumped into the sea. Nascimento ends his narration with the words: "And who is paying for all this? It must be expensive. Real expensive. That is the system, it's tough."