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'Lower City' traces the jagged edges of a lusty love triangle

You know things are getting steamy when the sex is happening almost fully clothed, against dirty walls, in places not exactly private. Bunny rabbits are more discreet.

This is the ravenous sex of youths and strangers, the heady ignition of hormonal propulsion and animal passion. It's the raw, impulsive coupling enacted in classics like "Last Tango in Paris" and "Body Heat," covered in sweat, with lots of panting. Danger, too, attends this strain of rash desire, flailing limbs being the least of it. Because love hurts, lust deranges and people are stuffed with secrets. They often do really stupid things.

Palm Pictures 'Lower City (Cidade Baixa)' 3 out of 5 stars The verdict: Boasts a great cast and sharp, observant writing. Director: Sérgio Machado Starring: Alice Braga, Lazaro Ramos, Wagner Moura, José Dumont, Harildo Deda Run time: 97 minutes Release date: May 26, 2006 Language: Portuguese with English subtitles. Rating: R for some strong sexual content, nudity, language, some violence, drug use. On the web Official movie site Rate 'Lower City'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

In the naughty Brazilian drama "Lower City," the unquenchable lust that lashes together a trio of scrappy twentysomethings has all of those ingredients, plus a heap of jealousy to fluster matters. Director Sérgio Machado's film is a small story that's as aimless as the heroes, two hustlers and a prostitute barely getting by. But he keeps us watching with the electric, sweat-drenched intimacy that he and his coiled performers generate in the Kool-Aid-colored demimonde of Salvador, a waterfront city in Brazil that wears a coat of scum like a broken scab.

It's a grubby Eden for cockfights, thieves and strip clubs, a place where arguments end with a knife in the gut and a broken bottle to the face. Situations like that have Naldinho (Wagner Moura) and Deco (Lázaro Ramos), best friends since childhood, scrambling in a desperate hustle. What cools them down is the entrance of a sweet tart named Karinna (Alice Braga), who gets a boat ride from the men and pays them in flesh. Hers.

Sharing a woman, as anyone who's dipped into a good noir knows, spells ruin. Naldinho, slightly thick-skulled, and Deco, a boxer with a body of ropy sinew, both fall for the peroxide lioness Karinna, breaking a vow of fraternal loyalty they touchingly made earlier in the film. When one goes off with her, the other looks on, his face a hard mask of clenched eyes and internal seething. The male actors radiate a loose, brotherly chemistry, and when their jealousy seethes to violence, the underlying tragedy is palpable.

You watch "Lower City" for the torrid exoticism — that grimy locale, those bedraggled lowlifes — as much as you do for the rather meager drama. (Or, you might watch it for the sultry right here-right now sex, a kind of spontaneous combustion.) Glistening in perspiration, the movie is an episodic mosaic that effectively gets across the noxious forces of love and lust.

It's a good but never great film that feels inconsequential and a little redundant within a crowded subgenre of love-triangle/menage a trois cinema, from "Jules and Jim" to "Get Out Your Handkerchiefs." Its closest reference point is 2001's "Y Tu Mamá También," and though "Lower City" shares some of that film's Latin tang and energy, it doesn't get outside of its tiny circle to become something larger.

Still, there are several memorable touches. One of the best is the final shot, a haunting montage of the three actors' eyes in close-up, six pools of unadorned emotion that tell us everything we need to know to end the story.