SEARCH FOR ABSENT FATHER COMES UP SHORT IN 'CITY OF MEN'.

Byline: Glenn Whipp

Film Critic

"City of Men" is sort of a sequel to "City of God," but it substitutes soap for the

frenetic style that made Fernando Meirelles' 2002 hyper-violent gangster movie a career-launching art-house sensation.

For all the critical attention Meirelles' movie received, its follow-up arrives relatively unheralded, almost as an afterthought.

Meirelles remains on board as a producer. Lead actors Douglas Silva and Darlan Cunha were both in "City of Men," but here they're playing different characters, albeit in the same squalid Rio de Janeiro setting.

Director Paulo Morelli, who shares a story credit with screenwriter Elena Soarez, hammers home how a cycle of absent fathers has produced multiple generations of lost boys. And by hammer home, the presentation comes almost straight from an ABC Afterschool Special, with characters speaking with the kind of blunt self-awareness that would go largely unsaid in the real world.

"City of Men" wears its message on its sleeve, but that doesn't prevent it from indulging in frequent bursts of violence. Morelli lacks Meirelles' flair for shooting action, though he has the same sharp eye for juxtaposing the city's potent beauty with the dirty lives of its poorest inhabitants.

Silva and Cunha play lifelong friends who have grown up on Dead End Hill, purposely avoiding the gang warfare that punctuates their lives. The good-natured Ace (Silva) has a young son but has no idea how to be a father to him. Meanwhile, Wallace (Cunha), about to turn 18, decides to track down the dad he never knew.

Naturally, it turns out that the fathers of these young men were once connected, and that the sins of the fathers threaten the tight bond between the sons. The plotting is contrived, but Morelli does convey the deep longing present in a generation wanting nothing more than the physical presence of a father in their lives.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

CITY OF MEN - Two and one half stars

>R: violence, language, sexual content.

>Starring: Douglas Silva, Darlan Cunha.

>Director: Paulo Morelli.

>Running time: 1 hr. 50 min.

>Playing: In select theaters.

>In a nutshell: Quasi-sequel to "City of God" revisits the slums of Rio to diminishing effect.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Darlan Cunha, left, and Douglas Silva of "City of God" return for a sequel of sorts, "City of Men," playing different characters still struggling to make a life in the harshest corners of Rio de Janeiro.