El bonaerense

Powerful sweat-stained swatch of Argentine neo-realism.

Unfolds leisurely, in anecdotal style, with deadpan humor and a sense of the absurd.

Trapero again proves himself a master of mood, evoking the gritty, workaday world of contemporary Argentina that helped establish him as one of the most important young directors of the new Argentine cinema.

As a morality play, it's a one-sided contest, because the question of whether power corrupts is never a question at all. As a queasily thrilling tour of a dirty little corner of the world, however, Trapero's film offers a memorable ride.

Not exactly a police corruption thriller, the film is more a study of innocence betrayed, though its insights into Argentine law enforcement are pretty scary.

Episodic in its storytelling, the film never really achieves any true narrative momentum. But individual scenes do register strongly.

Still, the vapor traces of farce and policier that waft from this terribly earnest film never coalesce -- perhaps our own cultural remove allows what plays straight at home to be experienced as slightly daffy.