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On the thug-ridden streets of Copacabana, the police get help from an unlikely breed of crimefighter: old ladies. Regina (Fernanda Montenegro), who busts nightclub corruption in caramel leather pants, is the pride of the "Senior Service," and her eager exploits at first spell a ridiculous mix of Murder, She Wrote and Miami Vice. But then she thinks she sees a man kill his wife in the apartment across the street, and it’s clear that first-time director Marcos Bernstein has Rear Window on his mind. Not that he’s blandly literal — in a saucy twist, Regina doesn’t just spy on the squinty suspect (Raul Cortez), she dates him. Montenegro, who starred in the Bernstein-scripted Central do Brasil/Central Station, conveys Regina’s dire loneliness and rage over the invisibility and apathy of the elderly. Save for some big white sneakers, she pulls off the lusty bits too. The film’s pace recalls the shuffle of Regina’s more arthritic contemporaries, and the tedious dialogue is equally creaky. But in the end it’s the appalling lack of intrigue, not the sexagenarian sensuality, that shocks. In Portuguese with English subtitles. (98 minutes)
BY ALICIA POTTER
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