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Though Argentina is certainly no stranger to the crime-thriller the nation - at least on the outer face of things - tends to take a certain approach to the material. It tends to be a little bit arthouse, a little bit slow, impeccably composed but perhaps a little bit distant. For an example, see this year's Oscar nominee The Secret Behind Their Eyes.

Well here, then, is writer-director Eduardo Pinto with something completely different.

This is the story of Panceta, a young laborer from one of the poorer suburbs in Greater Buenos Aires. He lives with his mother, a widow, who greatly misses her husband, as does Panceta his father. Panceta's life is focused on his work: he's taken over his fathers forge, as well as working at a pipe factory. But his ambitions to make money have made him turn to manufacturing home-made guns and selling them in the outlying districts.

PARK CITY -- Two scumbags get in over their heads on Buenos Aires' mean streets in "Palermo Hollywood", a dunderheaded, hyper-charged World Dramatic entrant at the Sundance Film Festival. Foul and furious, "Palermo Hollywood" is thematically and aesthetically a prime contender for Worst of the Fest, if such a dubious honor existed.

In this grubby, hyper-kinetic saga, Mario (Brian Maya) and Pablo (Matias Desiderio) deal dope and bust heads in Palermo, the skuzzy section of Buenos Aires. Both are louts, though Pablo ostensibly is stealing and scamming to help out his girlfriend and kid. Mario's domestic concerns are more focused on hitting on Mario's younger sister. Coked up and nasty, they also are stupid; the duo gets duped into participating in a murder/kidnapping, and the film's most satisfying moments come when they get dragged down.

Moronic mayhem swirled over with dopey sentimentality, Eduardo Pinto's direction is brutish: a loud smear of music-video-type cuts and slambang cinematography. It looks bad and sounds worse. Charitably, one could say the amped-up aesthetics befit the boneheaded characters, reflective of the film's dim-witted, crude sensibility.

PALERMO HOLLYWOOD

Patagonik

Credits:

Producer: Brian Maya

Director: Eduardo Pinto

Screenwriters: Brian Maya, Federico Finkielstain

Associate producers: Pablo Bossi, Omar Jadur

Director of photography: Pablo Schverdfinger

Art director: Graciela Fraguglia

Editor: Sergio Zottola

Music: Ivan Wyszogrod

Cast:

Mario: Brian Maya

Pablo: Matias Desiderio

Julieta: Manuela Pal

Stevie: Edgardo Nieva

Ernesto Segal: Miguel Dedovich

Jimena: Azul Lombardia

Beba: Cristina Banegas: Detective: Martin Adjemian

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 113 minutes...