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Lower City (Cidade Baixa)
Palm Pictures


7.0

based on 20 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 4 votes
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Rate this movie

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R for strong sexual content, nudity, language, some violence and drug use

Starring Lázaro Ramos, Wagner Moura, Alice Braga, and José Dumont

Two friends who co-own a cargo boat fall for the same girl.

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Karim Ainouz Sérgio Machado Adriana Rattes (contributing writer) Gil Vicente (contributing writer)
DIRECTED BY:	Sérgio Machado
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 12, 2006 Theatrical: June 16, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	98 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Brazil
LANGUAGE(S):	Portuguese (with English subtitles)

Award of Youth, 2005 Cannes Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

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.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Alice Braga owns this film.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

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

New York Post V.A. Musetto

The impressive first feature by Sergio Machado, a one-time assistant to Walter Salles ("The Motorcycle Diaries"), is a trip through a grungy world of crime, sex and cockfights.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Three potent performances readily compensate for the familiar plot.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Despite the lurid content, this is a beautifully made film that reaches for moral seriousness and resists facile judgments.

Variety Deborah Young

Though the storyline is dirt simple and not particularly meaningful or involving, the action in this character-driven film is scintillatingly sexy.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

In the end, Lower City is never quite as energetic as it wants to be, touched by the strange, milky lethargy that steeps every waterfront film.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

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.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Lower City is sexy, but in a nice, dirty way. Everyone in it is deliciously low and sleazy, and so underdressed in the blazing heat that they are just dying to strip.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

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.

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

From its actual and figurative scenes of cockfighting to its copious use of throbbing Brazilian music, there's little here that rises above the level of formula. But director Machado displays a sure touch in his ability to convey the sultry atmosphere of his exotic setting, and he has elicited admirably naturalistic performances from his highly attractive, youthful performers.

Boston Globe Michael Hardy

Everyone involved in the film seems better than the material.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

In trying for realism, Machado only achieves dramatic inertness.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

A bone-tired tale underneath.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The movie turns out to be a predictable and somewhat sentimental lower-depths love triangle, but Ms. Braga almost makes it work.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The story wears thin long before it's over, but Machado draws strong performances from his leads and makes excellent use of its rundown locations.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

This frenetic potboiler about a love triangle on the Salvador waterfront smacks of liberal slumming and bristles with faux authenticity.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

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

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

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

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it a5:
On their way to El Salvador, Deco(Lazaro Ramos) and Naldinho(Wagner Moura) attend a cock fight. Karinna(Alice Braga) wanted a quicker ride(the two men own a boat) so she took off with a trucker. "Lower City" doesn't go with her, presumably because the filmmaker wanted to establish that the continuation of a long-term friendship should take priority over the collective temporary lust for some midriff-baring trollop. "Lower City" is more concerned with the men. We don't learn a damn thing about Karinna because the film self-consciously wants her to remain an object of desire. If we learn too much about this girl(if say, she was abused by an uncle) the numerous love scenes by which Braga flaunts her nubility in a passionate state of undress, would seem more sorrowful than erotic if her insatiability had the appearance of a stopgap measure for her tumultuous past. At the cockfight, a cock dies. If you're completely unaware of what inevitability is in store for Deco and Naldinho, you've probably been to more cockfights than movies. The sex is hot, but since "Lower City" isn't strong on character development, or story, our attitude towards Braga's nudity takes on a "been there, seen that" disposition.

F Penn gave it an8:
One of those movies where you see the actors heading down a road you've been and you want to scream at the screen "Stop!", but you just watch, with a self-satisfying grin that there are people out there just as stupid as you (were).

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Lower City (Cidade Baixa) Palm Pictures

Lower City (Cidade Baixa)
Palm Pictures