Mouth to Mouth

(Miramax)

Pedro Almodóvar's contribution to Spanish cinema hasn't been all positive, as this belabored, misfiring sex farce by Manuel Gómez Pereira attests. Antonio Banderas wanna-be Javier Bardem, an out-of-work actor trying to polish his chops and earn income as a phone-sex operator, gets involved with two clients and their plots to kill their husbands. The film is convoluted and improbable, its eroticism more self-consciously hip and leering than sensuous or comic.