Viva Riva!

A slick, exciting, well-made crime thriller, dripping with atmosphere.

The first major motion picture to come out of Congo in decades happens to be one of the best neonoirs from anywhere in recent memory.

Martin Scorsese, meet Djo Tunda Wa Munga, because you obviously have a lot in common. Viva Riva! is nothing less than the Congolese Mean Streets, oozing sexual heat and brute violence and powered by a locomotive's worth of raw kinetic energy.

Repackaging the revenge thriller in parakeet colors and distinctive African beats, the Congolese writer and director Djo Tunda Wa Munga gives Viva Riva! a playful sensuality that goes a long way toward disguising formula.

On the basis of this expertly engineered crime thriller Djo Munga is a director going places.

The first from the Democratic Republic of Congo to be distributed in the U.S. That in itself is worthy of some kind of celebration, even if Viva Riva! too lazily indulges in shapeless genre excess.

The near-slapstick escapes sit uneasily with the raw bits of very adult sex and cringe-worthy close-ups of brutality that dominate the rest of the proceedings.