Lower City

Director Sérgio Machado, who worked as an assistant to Central Station's Walter Salles, lingers sensually over every wrong move his attractive tragic trio make.

Whatever its pretensions of social relevance, Sérgio Machado's Lower City is essentially an exploitation movie, and not a half-bad one at that.

The themes are all familiar and the plot unfolds slowly and in predictable ways, but there's plenty of heat generated by the three leads.

Even though Lower City ultimately leads nowhere (the movie doesn't end so much as simply stop), you won't mind having taken the trip.

Everyone involved in the film seems better than the material.

Machado establishes a realistically seamy environment for his erotic triangle, and there are some surprisingly tender moments amid the squalor.

Two guys panting over the same babe leads to tedium, despite a near-record number of overheated sex scenes.