MEXICAN CRIME CAPER GENERATES A FEW SPARKS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

EVERY COUNTRY needs its wacky, grotesque, formally assaultive crime caper. ``Nicotina'' is Mexico's entry in the Quentin Tarantino/Guy Ritchie sweepstakes, and it is enchanted by its own derivative vigor.

Whether you will be, too, depends on how much you enjoy coincidental plotting, gross violence, wretched venality and overamped digital editing effects. Not surprisingly, ``Nicotina'' aced the Mexican MTV Movie Awards. It also won a passel of the Oscar-equivalent Ariels which, if nothing else, proves that the Mexican academy is not as stuffy as ours.

Taking as their underlying theme that smoking may be deadly but many other things can kill you quicker, director Hugo Rodriguez and screenwriter Martin Salinas follow a few jonesing cigarette-kickers and their unfortunate associates through a night of criminal misadventures. They claim that all of this is taking place in real time, but there are so many characters and interlocking plot threads to keep track of, it's hard to notice that particular style choice.

Countless split screens, smash cuts, zooms, wipes and a relentless electronic score aren't as easy to overlook, though (or get away from). If Rodriguez was going for that recovering addict longing for a puff feeling, he's certainly captured it. There's a reason, however, why many of us never started smoking in the first place.

``Y Tu Mama Tambien'' up-and-comer Diego Luna is bent computer whiz Lolo. He spends most of his time spy-camming his sexy neighbor's apartment.

When she finds out, she makes a mess of Lolo's CD-ROM collection.

Which makes him turn over the wrong program for hacking Swiss bank accounts to some criminal pals.

Who end up in a shootout with the Russian gem smugglers they try to sell the useless data to.

Which leads to some very nasty stuff involving a barber and his greedy wife.

Oh, and there's a piggish pharmacist whose fed-up female assistant is, that's right, trying to quit smoking.

I believe there was a moral at the end of all this. Mostly, though, it leaves you with the spectacle of badly mutilated bodies and an unpleasant taste of too much hipster irony - that was truly hip a decade ago when Tarantino did it right.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

NICOTINA - Two and one half stars

(R: violence, language, nudity)

Starring: Diego Luna, Jesus Ochoa, Marta Belaustegui, Rafael Inclan, Rosa Maria Bianchi, Carmen Madrid.

Director: Hugo Rodriguez.

Running time: 1 hr. 33 min.

Playing: Universal Cineplex, Universal City; Regent, Westwood; ArcLight, Hollywood; Criterion 6, Santa Monica; Magic Johnson Theatres, Baldwin Hills.

In a nutshell: Wired, Tarantino-esque Mexican crime caper is equal parts clever and irritating. In Spanish with English subtitles.