`TURISTAS' TAKES AUDIENCES ON A VIOLENT, UGLY JOURNEY.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Oh, those ugly Americans.

They go to underdeveloped countries just to debauch and exploit the locals.

Some of them even make movies that imply that when people in those countries have had enough of rich Yankee behavior, they turn into sadistic lunatics that any red-blooded American is well within their rights to kill -- in self-defense, of course.

At least that's what happens in the Brazil-set ``Turistas,'' the first American movie filmed entirely, it claims, in the land of samba.

And an ugly thing it is. Although quite pleasing to look at for a while -- lush jungles, gorgeous water features, bare young flesh all over the place -- the film is spiritually misshapen from the get-go.

And ``Turistas'' gets physically grotesque once the scalpels come out.

Three hot Americans -- Alex (``Las Vegas' '' Josh Duhamel), his sister Bea (``O.C.'s'' Olivia Wilde) and her friend Amy (Beau Garrett) -- multilingual Aussie Pru (``Alias' '' Melissa George) and a couple of other English speakers survive a bus plunge down an oceanside cliff.

But not to worry. They may be in the middle of nowhere and hours, if not days, from the next ride out, but there's a smokin'-hot beach bar nearby, where every First Worlder's fantasy of sex, getting plastered and learning great dance moves comes true.

That is until they wake up the next morning, drugged, robbed and with a European or two missing. Folks in the nearest town are hostile, the cops are corrupt, and for some reason the tourists allow themselves to be led way up into the mountain rain forest. There, ghastly surgical payback awaits at the hands of a vengeful doctor (Miguel Lunardi), who talks a good game about harvesting organs for Brazil's impoverished sick but is really only in it for the money.

Isn't that nice, the way an articulate spokesman against international economic inequity is turned into an evil figure who can justifiably be hated and killed? Things like this happen when they try to wedge a serious idea or two into the torture horror genre.

``Turistas'' shares a carnal-to-charnel story arc and poli-psycho themes with the better, nastier ``Hostel'' that came out earlier this year. The idea of host countries dismembering their better-off visitors is only good for about one movie, though.

After that, it just seems like our fear of foreign things manifests in a way that may have some basis in truth (in fact, director John Stockwell got the idea for this when he was shot at and robbed by a gang of children in Peru). But it doesn't shed a ray of real political or cultural light.

Not that something like this should. But jeez, it ought to at least have a thrilling climax, which ``Turistas'' categorically does not.

Water-obsessed Stockwell (``Blue Crush,'' ``Into the Blue'') stages the climactic chase in a string of flooded caves. That's right: murkily shot figures swimming underwater REAL SLOW, with little spatial sense of who's where or about to be caught by whom.

It's about as scary as a beach party. In Malibu.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

[e-mail]

TURISTAS - Two stars

(R: violence, nudity, sex, drug use, language, racism)

Starring: Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde.

Director: John Stockwell.

Running time: 1 hr. 29 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: American tourists in Brazil take their clothes off, get stalked by mad doctor for organ transplants. Strictly for fans of naked young people and organ transplant horror.