Reviewed - Lower City/Citada Biaxa: Two young men, close friends since boyhood, fall out when both become sexually involved with the same woman. Hardly the most original of scenarios, it's played out melodramatically and generally predictably in this slow-burning first feature from Sergio Machado, a former assistant director to Walter Salles, who produced.

It opens in a Brazilian port in the north-eastern state of Bahia, where Karinna (Alice Braga), a precocious pole-dancer and prostitute, is looking for a lift to the state capital, Salvador. Cargo transporters Naldinho (Wagner Moura) and Deco (Lazaro Ramos) agree to take her on their boat - which is named Danny Boy - in exchange for sexual favours.

Stopping off at a port along the way, the men lay wagers on a cockfight, which is all too prominently featured and shockingly realistic, although the producers insist that neither rooster was hurt and that the staging of the scene was monitored by animal protector agents.

In the first of several narrative lapses, Naldinho is stabbed in a fight, but makes a quite miraculous recovery. From its sure-footed establishing sequences, the movie settles into an all-too-familiar formula, when jealousy severs the bond between the two men as each falls passionately for Karinna, who swings like a pendulum between them.

This is all the more disappointing given the conviction all three leads bring to their performances in a movie that benefits from an atmospheric score by Bahian musician and composer Carlinhos Brown.