I read that their is no real town called San Paulo, and that the movie was shot in Santa Cruz.
But it seems to me that the writers could have just set it in the real Santa Cruz, rather than making a place up. Why didn't they do that?
It's true, there is no San Paulo and the film was made in Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz beach boardwalk is well known in Northern California and where the finale takes place. It's a minor annoyance, I'm not sure why they changed the name but when I watch the film I always know it's Santa Cruz.
shareA lot of times filmmaker will make up a place, if they feel that using the name of a real place could come off as offensive, or exploitative, but using the real Santa Cruz here, I don't think would come off as such.
I mean sure there is a serial killer going around killing, and there is a police chief who knows too much and had a conflict of interest with his son in a crime, but that's it.
Also Santa Cruz looks like a nice town to live in :).
Santa Cruz probably didn't want any ignorant viewers to mistakenly associate their town with gang rape and corrupt police. San Francisco also wrestled with this problem with regard to the whole Dirty Harry franchise, ultimately deciding that the positive points of being associated with Dirty Harry outweighed the negatives. In my mind, both cities made the right choice.
shareThe only corrupt policeman though was the one guy who didn't want to see his son's crimes known. That doesn't the crimes right of course, but it was just one corrupt cop, with a family bias, as oppose to a more external corruption involving other police or money.
shareWhen I first heard the Lt. mention it, I thought he said Sao Paolo... in Brazil. I thought he wanted Harry real far away.
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