Imagine hyperactive auteur Quentin Tarantino helming a David Mamet-penned episode of a Brazilian telenovela in the early Seventies and you've got a pretty good approximation of the flavor of Aluizio Abranches' The 3 Marias. Equal parts soap opera, tragedy and Western, this revenge flick echoes the mother of all wronged women tales, "Medea," with an appropriately heavy dollop of gore thrown in.

Abranches' film, fueled by Heitor Dhalia and Wilso Freire's thin screenplay, opens with a bang as a man and his two sons are gruesomely dispatched in what is soon revealed to be a crime motivated by unfulfilled passions - a Brazilian woman named Filomena (Marieta Severo) jilted Firmino Santos Guerra (Carlos Vereza), who responded by ruthlessly murdering the man she chose and her offspring from that union.

Guerra neglects to remember Filomena's three daughters - all of whom are named Maria - which the wily and resourceful Filomena enlists to exact bloody revenge upon Guerra for his slaying of her husband and sons. Filomena coaches her daughters to hide their emotions, dialing down any feeling so as to become lethal, cold-blooded assassins - the mother also instructs her daughters to seek out third parties so as not to dirty their own hands. Naturally, not all of Filomena's plans go smoothly and yet somehow, wedged in among all the bloody hysteria, is a sly commentary on misogyny and its effects.

The 3 Marias is diverting in that low-budget, spaghetti western sort of way - the screenplay doesn't appear to have any ambitions above potboiling exploitation flick, which it achieves and then some. It's a great movie to unwind with on a lazy Saturday night but certainly won't be mistaken for high art. If you want masterful Brazilian cinema, check out City of God or the harrowing Bus 174.

The Video:

The 3 Marias is offered in a non-anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer that, quite frankly, looks like a VHS port to DVD. There's a lot of video noise, the image goes soft frequently and there's a faintly blown out look to the entire film. Since the film's set in the Seventies, it's arguable that this distressed look was intentional but it often seems more a result of the transfer than of any artistic choice. Very disappointing.

Presented in its native Portuguese with English subtitles burned onto the print, The 3 Marias is only offered in Dolby 2.0 stereo. It's a lackluster mix that sounds strident at times, but generally the dialogue is clean and easily heard. Nothing too exciting here.

There are scant extras included - Abranches' bio, photo gallery and trailers for The 3 Marias, Almost Peaceful, The Twilight Samurai, Monsieur N and La Vie Promise.

The 3 Marias isn't high art and doesn't pretend to be - fans of exploitation cinema or quick and dirty B-movies will find much to revel in here. A significant lack of extras make a blind buy iffy, but this is an easy recommendation for a rental off the beaten path.